Celluci and the Selchies
by Rookatthedoor
Summary: Post Deep Dark. Mike gets a case that takes him into Henry's new territory. Murder, mayhem and romance ensues...
1. Chapter 1

She raked her fingers along the sides of her head and then up the nape of her neck gathering the blond hair between her palms as she sat preparing herself. Holding the bundle in one hand she twisted the elastic from her wrist once, twice and finally a third time so that the ponytail hung brushing her shoulders.

Leave it alone she thought as she glanced around the shadowy office. It was early evening and the lowering sun still spilled, swirling with dust motes and as honey colored as her hair, through the slatted blinds of the office. It cast bars of shadow and light that moved slowly across the walls with time's passage. She could hear the cars passing by on the streets beyond and the muted voice of the city winding down another day.

When he was here in Toronto, she was always a little anxious at this time of day, the hours had always slowed to a crawl as she waited for him to return to life, to return to her and allow her to live again.

_Not that I could ever admit that to his Royal Highness, she reminded herself. Doesn't matter, I wouldn't do what he wanted so he simply took off like every other man I ever allowed close… Fuck! I can lie to the rest of them, but I can't really lie to myself. He begged me to go but my own sense of obligation made me say no._

Her traitorous memory provided the image of his posture, stiff and hurt at her refusal and the tears standing in his eyes.

'_So be it.' _

_How dare he?_

She had been icy cold with anger and hurt for the longest time. Prickly and unapproachable, she had refused his every effort to contact her, refusing his phone calls and voice mails and deleting his e-mails, with a sense of self righteous indignation.

She snubbed his conciliatory gestures over and over, until he had eventually decreased the frequency with which he tried and finally, believing her to have made her intent clear, he had stopped trying altogether.

The calls and voice messages had stopped long ago and then had come the terrible months where there had not been a single ping on her computer from the familiar e-mail address.

At last she could stand the silence no longer and had asked Coreen to assist her in retrieving the deleted e-mail messages.

Dark eyed and solemn, Coreen remained subdued as she had been since that terrible night. In spite of her own pain, Coreen had worked her usual 'magic' and had eventually recovered and copied every deleted e-mail into a folder for Vicki.

Vicki found it an exquisite torture to read them...but not knowing had been worse. She had thought that her heart, so fortified and sheltered within the fortress she had created, was safe. She was wrong and she had been, first touched and then bruised as she saw how the tone of his correspondence had changed over the length of her silence.

Early e-mail messages were conciliatory and caring and as she read them she could hear Henry's voice, _he wanted what was best for her, wanted her safe, wanted her with him._ He laid bared his ancient soul, and yet his words had fallen short of reaching her uncaring heart.

In the face of her continued silence his tone had first become more desperate and then with time…mournfully resigned. He at last had surrendered to the "_punishment she decreed for the decisions he had made almost five hundred years before,_" and his words had grown cold.

The last e-mail in that folder had informed her that he was settled in Vancouver in a new territory. Toronto he had surrendered to another, older vampire. He advised that Vicki not seek any contact her as she didn't suffer from the "same weaknessfor_ human companionship that_ _afflicted him_."

Though she had tried to kindle her anger, the ashes were cold, no spark remained. Inside she was adrift in a barren landscape, alone. Alone, she felt his absence as a pain in a part of her heart that was lost, like the persistent phantom pain of an amputated limb, a pain which could not be assuaged. She hungered and her pride could no longer sustain her.

Was it only a few weeks ago that she had fallen so low; that with tears in her eyes and half a bottle of whiskey in her gut, she had one evening opened that folder and hit "reply" to that final e-mail? She had typed a single, non committal line—How is Vancouver? She had stared at the blinking cursor at the end of that line for at least an hour. Quickly before she could change her mind she typed, I miss you. V. She hit "_send_."

If she thought there would be an instantaneous reply, she was disappointed. The clock had read 4:30 am when she had shut down her computer, thinking, _t_hat's 1:30 am in Vancouver, he's been up for hours...he's not going to answer. She had crawled almost fully clothed into bed, and hugging the pillow to her chest, fell into haunted and heated dreams that she could not later recall.

Yet the next day when she rose just before noon she discovered a terse e-mail in her inbox. _Vancouver is beautiful. Are we talking? H._

There had followed a long chain of forced and hollow written electronic correspondence. Stilted as they were, they were far, far better than those six months of hellish silence. There were many, many hurts and issues that lay between them, but at least there was a_ 'between them'_ again.

Now here she sat in front of her computer as her office slowly darkened with the approaching twilight...and half the continent away, as the sun still road high in her zenith, the vampire slept.

_Come on Nelson, what's wrong? Is it 'that' time of the month?_ Her imagination supplied the voice: a Sergeant McNeal, a particularly old school hard-assed instructor from her Academy days. He had a penchant for badgering female recruits, harassing them unmercifully, with chauvinistic comments. She knew now he had been "_culling the herd_" as he called it, of those cadets both male and female who lacked the tenacity required for a life on the force. In his own brutal way he had been kind, sparing those who quit the far more brutal challenges faced by those who succeeded. When she wanted to motivate herself, she could often hear his voice.

"Coreen," Vicki called in the direction of the milky glass of her office door.

At her desk, Coreen jumped slightly as she quickly closed down the window on her screen. She felt slightly guilty about eavesdropping on Vicki and Henry's e-mail correspondence but her disgust at the both of their stubborn prideful personalities overrode any twinges that her conscience may have given her.

It broke her heart the way that Vicki treated Henry, and yet she was also angry at Henry for leaving, for giving up.

_He was almost 500 years old for God's sake._ _He was a Prince and a Childe of the Night, he was supposed to come riding to the rescue, be big and strong and tough, be able to take anything that Vicki dished out. Right?_

Coreen's usual bubbling and hopeful spirit had been much subdued by her possession and the horrific events that followed. Vicki had earned her undying devotion for the terrible sacrifices she had made in order to save Coreen's life and soul. Now Coreen wanted to give back to Vicki, and once she had enough information she would figure out a way to do that.

Henry and Vicki were star crossed lovers, of this Coreen was absolutely sure. And _if the stars were not favorable at present, well_ Coreen vowed _somehow she would find a way to move them into alignment._

She was half way across the room to answer the bawled summons when Vicki partially opened the door. With one hand on the door she leaned through saying. "You know what Coreen? I think we're done for today. Just bring me the Anderson file; I want to go over the depositions again. Then you can get outa' here. Leave the invoices until tomorrow."

"Are you sure Vicki, I mean I could hang around a bit, or maybe we could go and get a bite of dinner?" Coreen said as she leaned into the file drawer and retrieved the fat and dog-eared Anderson file.

"No, I'm good," Vicki replied as she took the proffered file, "I'm going to spend an hour or so with '_Jack Anderson'_ here, she said as she patted the file, "and then I'm going to catch up on some e-mail."

As Coreen drew in her breath to speak, Vicki held up her hand to forestall her.

"I'll grab something to eat on the way home, after all the date I have planned with '_Jack Daniel's_ later should not be undertaken on an empty stomach," she quipped.

Again she forestalled Coreen's comment, "I'll be fine Coreen, go home."

Coreen recognized the 'it will do you no good to argue' tone in Vicki's voice. She picked up her shoulder bag and grabbing her jacket said, "All right if you're sure. I'll stop at the 'Bucks on the way in tomorrow," and as she was closing the office door, through the shrinking opening she added in a rush, "And I'll bring you a bran muffin as well!"

The door clicked closed before Vicki could protest.

Shaking her head, Vicki crossed back to her desk and dropped the file, ignored, on the top. She lowered herself to the chair seat, and then leaning back brought a hand to her chin to look pensively at her computer screen. Finally she brought her fingers to the keyboard.

_Why is it_, she thought, _that I can't write what I really want to say to him? Wish you were here._


	2. Chapter 2

_Toronto Aquarium_

_Marine Mammal Rescue and Study Pool_

From this side of the thick green glass the rescue pool looked entirely different.

****

It had somehow pleased him in a sick and twisted sort of a way, to visit the Toronto aquarium.

Mostly it amused him to visit the Marine Mammal Rescue. The system of quarantine pools, the buildings, the clinic, and the large salt water pool all held a curious and illicit attraction for him.

He had always found it amusing that those idiotic, tree hugging environmentalists volunteered all that time and energy trying to save a few injured or sick marine mammals.

He would stand in the tourist groups and listen to those 'holier than thou' know-it-alls whine on and on about the brutality of the seal hunt, the violence of the poachers, the problems with the overfishing, global warming…_yackity ,yack, yack, yack ._

_For what_? He had thought, _for what?_ _So that you can set them free again and we can catch them and skin them, and line our pockets. You biologists and professors and activists all think you are so smart, well you're not. You're stupid driving around in your beat up vans or damn hybrids, living in your co-op housing. I'm the smart one, I'm the one with the big house, the fancy cars, the trophy wife with the silicon tits and the fur coats…me! Yeah I'm the smart one __._

He liked to lean over the edge of the railing and look down into the salt water pool. The water was deep and green and cold. There was even a real transplanted kelp forest in the enclosure. Brought in and carefully tended at great expense by a team of scientists and volunteers all supported by the donations of a bunch of bleeding hearts whose heads were obviously as soft as those hearts.

It was just business, that's all it was. All those seals those idiots were so worried about were just so much meat enclosed in a fur coat made out of money. The _Organization_ recognized that there was a huge market for endangered or controlled animal products; the more illegal something was the bigger the demand and the higher the price tag. His bosses and his associates all made a great deal of money on providing people with what they truly wanted, whether it was gambling, drugs, murder, extortion, women, art or antiquities, or the by-products of poaching and the traffic in endangered species. They knew, as he knew, there was money to be made. And he made his share.

What he really liked to do best was to go down to the glass observation tunnel, beneath the salt water pool. He liked to stand and look through the glass at the seals twisting and turning through the water around him. Sleek and agile they flew through the liquid. If he was alone, sometimes he indulged himself in a little fantasy, where he pulled his piece and pretended he was shooting them as they flowed sinuously by the glass, picking them off like fish in a barrel…

***

From this side of the thick green glass the rescue pool looked entirely different.

His head hurt and even the icy water did nothing to ease the throbbing.

***

He knew that they had knocked him unconscious. When they had taken him in his own driveway, he had caught a glimpse of the sealing club before it came down on his head. The world had gone black and when he had awakened next, he was bound and gagged with duct tape in the trunk of a car that had eventually turned out to be his own. There were five of them when they had eventually pulled him from the trunk, _of his own damned car!_

They were all young, all male and all grim and angry. He resisted as best he could but between them they dragged him, struggling, into the aquarium grounds.

The rest held him upright as one them used a pass key to enter. He had then crossed to the control room and disappeared. In a moment he was back whispering, "The cameras are recording the tapes from two weeks ago now. Let's do it."

He had begun to struggle in earnest as they had dragged him to the edge of the rescue pool. The surface of the water was smooth and silvery in the brilliant moonlight. The sleek spotted heads of two grey seals emerged at the edge of the pool, whiskers quivering and their huge dark eyes curious.

They had forced him down to the wet concrete at the pools edge, his nostrils flaring as he struggled to breathe. He drew in the tang of the salt water and the stink of dead fish. They bound his legs together at the ankles with more tape. He was breathing in sharp bursts as they lifted him by ankles and shoulders between them. He mumbled and murmured behind the tape, but they paid him no heed. He bucked as he hung in the air and his eyes grew wide and imploring. He shook his head, _no, no nooo…._

The cold water closed over his face, and for a moment he could see though the wavering surface three young men and two seals at the edge of the pool, looking down on him. They grew more distant and indistinct, little by little as he began to sink.

He twisted his body in an effort to free himself and he began to sink faster through the water, now feet first. His eyes were wide as he watched the sleek body glide effortlessly through the water towards him. He felt the blunt nose impact hard with his chest and he lost most of the air in his lungs, in a rush of silvery bubbles that slipped quickly to the surface. The impact spun him over horizontal again. Now he was facing the bottom of the pool. He could see the glass tunnel illuminated below him, a hollow glowing tube. He drifted down and down until his cheek contacted the cold glass of the observation tube.

***

From this side of the thick green glass the rescue pool looked entirely different.

The face of the murderer appeared as he drifted up against the glass of the roof. The murderer's hair floated around his head, pushed to and fro in the artificial currents of the water, his cheek flattened against the glass. As he slid down the side of the tube they could see his wide panicked eyes, imploring above the tape covering his mouth. A trail of tiny silver bubbles escaped his nose.

Joseph reached one hand down to touch the still slick coat of his companion.

"Nicki," he said and directed the seal's liquid brown gaze by pointing towards the murderer's bound body. "Watch, he is paying the price for his crimes."

A soft whistle was the only reply as the seal pushed its head up under Joseph's hand.

***

Inside that tube he could see a man, his long brown ponytail hanging over his shoulder, pointing at him. The man bent his hand on the coat of a seal that crouched beside him on the tunnel floor.

His lungs were burning now, and he shook his head telling himself…_Don't do it, don't do it…_

_There was air on the other side of that glass, air he needed. Christ! I'm going to drown. _

_Help me, Please…._

He felt the glancing impact of another seal at his side, spinning him up and over again. He saw the smooth silvery body dart away to disappear amid the waving strands of kelp.

His lungs were on fire now, a dreadful burning that was initially relieved when he drew in the first breath of cold salted water. He was nearing the bottom now; the bright underside of the water's surface was surrounded by encroaching darkness on all sides. He saw graceful forms, flippers extended, cut through the water, gliding over his head, silhouetted against that silvery light. Dancing and cavorting. His lungs flooded as he instinctively breathed in again.

He watched the tiny bubbles rise away from him, escaping to the air above. As his shoulder touched the pool bottom he turned his head to the waving forest of kelp. He saw a scuba diver in among the long dark fronds, his arm looped carelessly around a seal that hovered there. He looked back to the surface once more. The silvery wavering light was shrinking quickly now smaller and smaller…

***

They left him on the bottom for twenty minutes, until they were sure he was dead. With the help of the seals they brought him to the surface and laid him in a plastic body bag. They took him back out to his car and placed him the trunk. Working quickly with the adeptness of long practice they carefully removed all evidence of their presence and before leaving returned the surveillance cameras to their proper record function.

When they were all in the car and pulling out of the lot Joseph said to another young man, "I wish that we could skin and butcher the bastard, the way they do to the seals. But I suppose that would make us as bad as they are. We'll take him home, just like the others."

***

The surface of the rescue pool was silver and placid in the moonlight. A spotted snout and curious liquid brown eyes broke the surface. A second snout emerged alongside the first. The bulk of their bodies hung suspended and swaying in the pool. One seal quietly submerged and darted smoothly away flying through the waving dark kelp beneath the water. The remaining seal raised a whiskered face, ageless dark eyes reflecting the moon overhead and barked a challenge to the night.


	3. Chapter 3

_Fuck! I hate this, I fuckin' hate this_, Mike thought as he regarded the inside of his eyelids seeking a moment's respite from the grim reality of his existence.

There was always a smell about the morgue, a smell that no amount of disinfectant or scrubbing could defeat. He didn't know what it smelled like; he had no comparison for it. It wasn't necessarily a bad smell but it was distinctive. _I don't need a fucking vampire's sense of smell to know what the bloodsucker means, when he says he can smell death. Thank God for Rajani. If it wasn't for her, what was it…professionalism, comfort? I just couldn't deal with this shit. How the hell can she be humming… humming in this stainless steel, refrigerated, antiseptic version of hell! _

He could hear Dave's slightly asthmatic wheeze at his elbow, and he felt a sudden pang of sympathy for his rotund partner.

_Over weight and in ill health, the morgue can't be any walk in the park for him either,_ Mike thought. _Evidence of your own mortality always made people uncomfortable. Ironic isn't it, that Dave's way of coping with that insight will be to end up outside the station as soon as possible lighting up yet another cancer stick and looking for a buddy to visit the bar with tonight…hell, I might even join him._

He opened his eyes to the coroner's trim white coated figure as she crossed to the sheet draped gurney. She laid a nimble brown hand flat on the corpse's chest, tapping her index finger up and down against the white cloth.

"How did you come to be lying drowned in your bed Mr. Parker, Hmmm?" she enquired, her tone crisply accented and yet sympathetic.

_One of these times one of them is going to sit up and answer her,_ Mike thought to himself. _Who the fuck knows anymore? Maybe some of them already do. 'Fang boy' makes it look like death isn't the final solution I always thought it was…_ Before he could launch himself further into his reverie, he was interrupted by Dave's wheezing question.

"So Doc, is this one the same as the other one?"

"Well detective, I would have to say there are many startling similarities between Mr. Parker here and Mr. Hakito from last month," Rajani said as she drew back the sheet.

Dave's eyes widened in his mobile face as he said, "How the hell, _oh! sorry Doc_, does a guy drown in his own bed?"

"Well, technically Detective Graham, though both men drowned, neither was in bed when the drowning took place. Mr. Parker and Mr. Hakito both have the following in common: both died by drowning, both men's lungs were full of salt water. In both cases, there were contusions to the head, some form of blunt force trauma which in Mr. Parker, resulted in a concussion.

"Any idea from this guy, what the weapon was?" Mike interrupted, remembering that the wound in the Hakito case had been inconclusive.

"Nothing specific as yet," Dr. Mohadevan replied, just the slightest irritation in her tone at having been interrupted while enumerating her findings. "I will say though, that judging from the injury in Mr. Parker's case I suspect a rather long handled club of some sort. I will need to go back and compare my notes on Mr. Hakito's injuries."

Dr. Mohadevan straightened her lab coat and continued, "The residue on their skin indicates that both Mr. Parker and Mr. Hakito had been bound at the wrists and ankles with duct tape.

Both men had their mouths completely covered with the same tape. Given the bruising patterns on the limbs, which indicates that they struggled, it is my opinion that both of these gentlemen were fully conscious and aware when they were put in the water.

Mike closed his eyes briefly, his flesh pebbling as the idea of being bound and helpless, sinking in the water, created a particular horror in him. _These men knew they were going to die._

"And it was _salt water _in this one's lungs as well right Rajani?" Mike asked aloud to cover his unease.

"Yes…as I said," she replied. "In addition both men had a blunt force trauma to the chest, resulting in a developing bruise over the ribs happening almost immediately preceding death, as though they were hit by something while in the water. Just here," she said, indicating a darkened area on Parker's bare chest.

"And more interesting still, the same trace evidence was present on Mr. Parker's body as was found on Mr. Hakito's...seal hairs on the clothing and present in the water in the lungs," Rajani continued, tilting her head to the side inquiringly.

"Anything else?" Mike asked.

"Not at present," Dr. Mohadevan answered, shaking her head, "but then I have a few more questions yet to put to Mr. Parker here. If I get any more information, I'll be sure to pass it along to you."

"Ok then, thanks Rajani," Mike said as he pushed through the doors of the morgue and out into the brightly lit hallway, Dave crowding close to his heels.

"Man," Dave said, shaking his head and loosening his tie, "it totally creeps me out when she acts like the dead actually talk to her."

"I know exactly what you mean Dave," Mike replied, his mind already back at the crime scene they had visited earlier today.

***

It was an upscale neighborhood, a mansion sized house behind a security gate, a long curving drive and manicured lawns complete with shaped hedges and statuary. The neighbors were too discreet to stand in their driveways or on the street watching; instead Mike could feel their eyes behind the drawn curtains and shades.

The elegance of the house was spoiled by the yellow and black POLICE LINE/ DO NOT CROSS tape stretched across the gate. Though the uniforms at the gate knew him Mike reached into the inside pocket of his trench and flashed his badge anyway. "Celluci, Homicide," he identified himself. You never knew when protocol could matter.

He and Dave had ducked under the tape and moved to the front entrance of the house. There was a tall, slim thirty-something woman, most likely 'the wife,' in a sequined mini dress, a fluffy white bomber and high heels, giving a statement to one of the uniforms.

Dave took an appreciative look at the long shapely legs and the large breasts so obviously out of proportion with the tiny waist and hips, the black mascara smudged by copious tears and muttered to Mike, "Uh! I got this Mike, why don't you take a look at the scene?" as he pulled out his police ID once more.

Shaking his head, Mike started up the curving staircase, a smile slowly spreading over his lips as he heard the small dog 'the wife' held on her arm begin to yap and growl at Dave's approach.

The uniform at the top of the stairs directed him with a sweep of an arm. Mike trod heavily across the cream colored deep pile of the carpet to the open double doors of the bed room. The room was dominated by a huge bed and _Oh my God! Were there really mirrors on the ceiling above it? Who has that in their house?_

CSI had just cleared the room, and the coroner's tech Bartholomew Williams was ready to move the body. Mike held up his index finger to indicate that he needed a few minutes and Bart nodded his acknowledgement of the silent request.

Mike approached the bed, taking note of the opulent materials and furniture in the intimate and sensuous setting; finally he stood looking down at James, AKA Jimmy, Parker.

Jimmy Parker lay fully clothed, in apparent rest, with the satin sheets and cashmere blankets drawn across his chest. His arms lay at his sides on top of the blankets. Mike's eyes took in the gold rings on the pudgy fingers and what was undoubtedly a Rolex beneath the wet shirt cuff.

He was propped on the multitude of pillows eyes closed, a frown that looked like puzzlement on his face. One might have suspected that he was asleep but for the darkened margin of wet on the bedding that outlined the body. _Don't even need a fucking chalk line, _Mike thought.

Mike could discern from where he leaned carefully over the body the slight tang of salt water, like the first scent of the ocean on the air, when you are still a couple of miles from the shore.

Where Parker's head was turned to the side, there was a spreading wetness where the water had slowly leaked from his mouth. Mike swallowed quickly, trying to dispel the gag reflex that the sight and scent induced.

He turned away from the body nodding the 'go ahead' to Bart. Mike heard the distinctive sound of the long zipper of the body bag being opened as his eyes swept the rest of the room. There was a pair of huge walk-in closets. The doors were open on one that was full of women's clothes and a staggering collection of shoes. At the back of the closet was another thick door that opened into a smaller closet. There were dials and gauges set in the wall outside the door. Mike could hear the whirring of an air conditioning unit.

Dave emitted a low whistle from behind his shoulder. "I've heard about this but I've never seen one," he said as he reached past Mike to finger the silk of the garment bag hanging closest to the door.

"Never seen one what?" Mike said, "What the fuck is this?"

"Man! It's a fur vault, a cold storage unit for fur coats, humidity controlled," he said, tapping the humidity gauge with his fingertip.

"The wife, Mrs. Parker, said she had been out with friends at a club and then an after-party all night, and when she returned home she came upstairs. She said that after she 'found' the body the first thing she did, even before she called 911, was check the closet to see if her furs were still there, well, after she checked her jewelry that is. She says she can't see that anything is missing so it isn't burglary. Is it just me or does this start to look like the Hakito case?" Dave said.

"It's not just you," Mike agreed nodding.

Dave continued as he noisily unzipped the long silken garment bag, "Seems Jimmy Parker is a furrier and an _import, slash, export_ success story. The wife says that he '_loved_' her to wear the furs he gave her, _if you know what I mean._ Man...Would you look at this?" Dave said as he exposed a long fluffy white fur.

Mike's ears picked up the distinctive sound of the tech zipping up the body bag across the room behind him.

"Do you have any idea how much this is worth?" Dave asked as he ran a hand over the downy white surface, "It's a baby seal skin full length coat, this guy must have been worth a mint."

"That doesn't help him now, does it?" Mike said as his eyes narrowed as he noted the row of ten or twelve similar garment bags. He ran a hand through his hair and then stuck his hands in his trench coat pockets and turning to his partner said, "Let's get back to the station, this looks a lot like the scene from the Hakito case last month, I want to pull the paperwork up on that one and I am going to want to talk to Mohadevan once she has had a look at this guy."


	4. Chapter 4

"…_we fail to see how the details of our feedings would be, in any way, a concern of yours."_

"Why you pompous and overbearing asshole," Vicki fumed. "I cannot believe that he actually used the royal '_we_' in an e-mail, for Christ's sake."

All she had done was to inquire if the warm weather _bimbos_ on the West Coast were tastier than the cold pressed _bimbos_ of Toronto. She really couldn't see why _His Lordship_ had to be in such a snit over it.

She glanced down at her watch —it was 7:00 PM. Good…she could write him back right now and give him a piece of her mind in regards to that outdated snobbery. Oh wait, the time difference thing was driving her nuts, he was still _dead to the world_; it was only 4:00 PM in _Lotus land_. Well, she could still write it and…

"Hrumph…" Coreen cleared her throat as she leaned her head in through the partially open door and though her eyes widened slightly at the expression on Vicki's face when she looked up, she didn't withdraw.

"What?" Vicki barked the question.

Coreen shook her head slightly at Vicki's tone and rolled her kohl lined eyes expressively towards the outer office, in a silent remonstrance. "Mr. Wayne Franklin and his daughter Linda Gaelan are here to see you. If you remember, they have a seven o'clock appointment."

In her pique at Henry's e-mail Vicki had indeed forgotten that she was meeting with a potential client this evening, even though Coreen had stayed specifically for this appointment.

Vicki closed the lid of the laptop and pushed it off to the side of the crowded desk. _Maybe it was better she not respond right now anyway, she thought._

She pushed back an errant piece of hair behind her ear and rose from her seat. "Show them in Coreen, please," she said in her most business like tone.

As Vicki came around from behind her desk to meet the two visitors her mind flashed on a conversation she had had with Henry.

***

"_You shouldn't slouch behind your desk when you meet prospective clients," he had told her as he leaned on both arms, across the desk towards her. "It establishes a barrier between you and the other person that is difficult for them to overcome," he lectured. _

"_From a body language standpoint it means 'unapproachable.' What you want to do is to come close to them with your arms held open at your sides, like this," he said as he came around the desk to hover well inside her personal space. _

_He leaned in close and breathed in deeply, his startling blue gaze hooded. He said with a grin, "See, don't I seem more 'approachable' now?" His emphasis on the word approachable, made his meaning clear. _

_She pushed back in her chair and had tempered her comment with a slight smile,_

"_Oh! So now I'm getting lessons in reading human body language from someone who's not even human?"_

_If she remembered correctly he had been quite offended and it had taken her the better part of the evening to mollify his wounded pride. Silly ass…still she had been coming around her desk to meet her prospective clients ever since._

_***_

As she shook hands with what appeared to be a successful business man and his twenty-something daughter, she indicated that they should be seated and then said, "So why don't you tell me how you think I can help you Mr. Franklin."

The thin blond woman in the worn jeans and boots spoke up, "Actually I am the one who is looking for your help Ms. Nelson. Daddy is just here as the bank." Wayne Franklin grimaced and shifted in his chair a little uncomfortably but remained silent.

Vicki turned her attention to the fresh faced and outdoorsy looking woman and said, "Why don't you tell me what the problem is Ms. Gaelan."

"It's Mrs. Gaelan actually, but I would like it if you called me Linda," she said.

Vicki nodded, "Go on…Linda."

"My husband, Orion, is missing." she caught her breath and then continued, "I'm afraid something has happened to him."

"Why don't you just start at the beginning and tell me everything in your own words," Vicky said.

Over the next hour the story emerged with some careful prodding from Vicky and a few terse comments from Wayne Franklin who apparently did not approve of either Orion Gaelan or his daughter and son-in-law's life style.

Orion and Linda Gaelan were both environmental and animal rights activists, and were deeply involved in several organizations.

Linda was a writer; the majority of her work was columns for various organization news papers and web sites. Though they lived in Toronto, Orion was a photographer and travelled a great deal working as a deck hand on a 'for charter' tall ship the Artemis. He had been on board the Artemis on a charter up from Maine to Nova Scotia into Lunenburg. Once there the Artemis was to lay up for a re-fit.

Linda had last heard from him at the beginning of April when he had a called and said he had an invitation to sail on a small schooner, the Lila, up to Newfoundland to photograph the protest of the seal hunt and to confront the sealers on the ice.

That was six weeks ago now. When she could not reach him Linda had gone to Lunenburg but it turned out that the Lila had not sailed. Her captain said that Orion had decided to try to find some other way to get up to the hunt. That was all he knew.

Linda was convinced 'something' had happened to Orion. He would never stay out of contact for such a long period of time. She had received the statements on Orion's credit cards and there was activity showing in Montreal and Toronto, as well as the purchase of a one way airline ticket to Vancouver.

Linda knew, she just knew something was wrong, and she wanted Vicki's help to find out what it was.

"So the both of you are involved with several organizations. Is there any chance that there are enemies of those organizations, any powerful people who you have crossed with your activities?" Vicki asked as she regarded her notes.

She watched Linda carefully; she could not shake the feeling that there was something that the other woman was not sharing with her.

Linda said, "You mean do we have any enemies? I can give you a list of the organizations we are directly involved with, as well as those we work with in some less official capacity. It is certainly possible that we have come to the attention of some powerful and less than scrupulous groups. Our '_activities_' sometimes interrupt some very profitable ventures."

"My fees are five hundred dollars a day plus expenses," Vicki said. "I have to warn you that an investigation of this type can take some time."

Wayne Franklin spoke directly to Vicki, "I may not agree with my daughter and son-in- law's politics or actions, but no one messes with my family Ms. Nelson, no one! Your fee will not be an issue."

He took a checkbook from his jacket pocket, and asked. "Will a five thousand dollar retainer suffice to start?"

Vicki nodded her eyes on Linda as the woman smiled at her father and then resumed chewing her lower lip nervously.

"Is there something more you want to tell me, Linda?" she asked.

_You mean like…I should have known if he found it he would leave me? Isn't that what every story says will happen? All his promises that he would stay if only I would I give it back…meant nothing. I should have known if he found it he would leave._

"No…" Linda said aloud, "No, that's all I can think of right now."

"All right then," Vicki said, rising to shake first Linda's and then Wayne Franklin's hand. "If you send me that list of organizations in the morning, we'll get started right away."

"I'll fax it over as soon as I get home," Linda said. "Thank you Ms. Nelson."

***

When Coreen had seen them out the outer office door she came back into Vicki's office, her eyes sparkling with interest. "A new case…we need that Vicki, even if it is only a boring missing person case, nothing super natural or spooky at all."

_I haven't seen her look this alive in a while now_. Vicki thought.

"Yeah…well it could be just me, but there is something going on with Linda Gaelan that she didn't tell us, something that she wasn't sharing?"

"Well, I can get on Orion Galen tonight and check for back ground info and known lists of associates and all that fun stuff if you'd like," Coreen volunteered.

"No, you know what, why you don't call it a night," Vicki said, glancing back to the computer. "I want to catch up on some correspondence anyway. We can get a fresh start in the morning."

Coreen gave her a knowing smile, and said, "Well, there did appear to be a '_Vancouver connection_' after all…"

"Don't even think it!" Vicki scowled. "Out"

Coreen held up her hands in mock surrender. "I'm going, I'm going. See you tomorrow Vicki."

***

By the time Coreen had turned off the outer office lights and locked the door as she left, Vicki was once more at her desk staring at the computer screen.

The shadowed confines of her office were a comfortably familiar setting, though blurred at the edges in the dimness. The cool blue light from the laptop illuminated her face as she leaned towards the screen.

_I wish you were here... I wish you were here…now where had that thought come from?_

Sitting back she drew a bottle of whiskey from the desk drawer. A quick trip to the kitchenette provided a glass and some ice. She poured herself a stiff drink when she reclaimed her seat.

Tilting the glass to her lips she felt the chill of the ice and the sweetness of the alcohol. All this talk about ships and water had sent her mind back to the few memories she retained of the previous visits she had made to Vancouver.

_It really is a beautiful city she admitted to herself, very outdoorsy and dramatically scenic, full of beautiful laid back people, it probably really appeals to his artistic senses. _She snorted indelicately_. It probably appeals to a lot more than just his artistic senses…she imagined him on the seawall in Stanley park, hunting alone in the dark, the sea breeze pushing his curls back from his…shit, Nelson, maybe you should take up writing for Hallmark cards…_

She had hit the reply button and the cursor flashed at the top of Henry's last message…

_This is so childish_ she thought. _Why can't I just say what I mean?_

It was almost ten o'clock now, which made it seven in Vancouver, he would be rising soon.

"…_we fail to see how the details of our feedings would be, in any way, a concern of yours."_

She began to type.

"_My dear little prince_…_"_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five (Speak of the Devil…)**

_He was up to his neck in paperwork, no, strike that, he had long ago slipped beneath the surface, he was drowning in paperwork…drowning in paperwork…ha!…that sounded just like something Vic would say…working on the case of two men both found drowned in their beds and he was drowning in paperwork and…_

"Shit!" He jumped as his cell began to buzz and rattle somewhere under the reams of paper spread across his desk top. He patted over the surface and on the fourth ring, just before it went to voice mail; he extricated the cell from beneath the Parker file. He flipped it open one handed while bringing it to his ear.

"Celluci," he said by way of greeting.

"Hey Mike…how's my favorite detective?" the familiar voice inquired at the other end of the connection.

_Speak of the devil and she is sure to appear,_ was his first thought, followed closely by the second, _she has got a lot of fucking nerve calling me after all this time._

_Mike wasn't sure how it had happened but when the bloodsucker had walked out of Vicki's life, she had come to Mike, for solace. It had been difficult at first as he had misunderstood what she needed. _

_She was hurting and he thought that maybe there was a chance for them again. There had been a couple of months, where they had returned to the passionate lovemaking of their past, both of them forgetting their sorrows and losing their disappointments and fears in each other's bodies. _

_There had been a kind of a familiar and warm comfort there. Yet something in Vicki had begun to fester, like a wound the vampire had left on her soul, even though she had refused all contact from the Princeling._

_The warmth of the shelter they found in each other beneath the covers slowly became the heated and sweating delirium of the fever that resulted from that thing that festered in her heart._

_They argued and loved, and argued and loved, until finally, emotionally exhausted, Mike was forced to recognize the inevitable._

_Then like wounded animals, they had fallen on each other, that last time, tearing at their emotions with tooth and nail and venomous words. Mike had pushed her away. _

_He remembered that he had spoken aloud his fear, opened his heart and told her, "No more Vic, Ok? No more. I am not his undead royal fucking highness, and I won't be his stand in. You're killing me here!"_

_She had been beyond furious, and given the wordless fury on her face, for a few moments Mike had actually feared for his life. Vicki had grabbed her bag and slammed out his door, without another word. He hadn't heard from her in almost three months and now here she was on his cell._

Mike held the phone away from his ear, and leaning back precariously in the chair, ran his fingers through his hair, knotting them at the back of his neck and pulled until his eyes stared imploringly at the ceiling. _What should I say?_ He asked himself.

He brought the cell back to his ear and slowly answered his addiction. _Better to pretend…_

"Hey Vic, long time…no see." He fell short of the non-committal empty tone he desired. Frowning, he cleared his throat and tried again, "How's business?"

"Oh, you know Mike, not bad, not bad. Actually I have a new case that I thought I might pick your brain on. How does dinner sound? He heard her smile in the invitation.

_Don't do it, don't do it,_ his internal voice screamed. _When it comes to Victory you are like a junky. You can't stop yourself! You hit bottom once and you are just now pulling yourself out of that well._ The internal battle raged on.

Vicki, misreading his silence automatically upped the ante. "It doesn't even have to be Chinese you know, we could start a new tradition, how about Italian, and I'll even pay."

Dave, having seen Mike's guarded expression walked over to his desk and laid a sheet of paper down, it bore a single word. VICTORY?

Mike nodded and Dave tossed his head towards Crowley's office, his expression easy to interpret.

_I'll cover for you, partner._

Mike mouthed, "Thanks."

"Ahhh…Vic, I'm not sure that would be such a good idea," he said slowly, though he knew he was only fooling himself. _When have I ever been able to deny her?_

"Come on Mike, don't be like that, it's only going to be two 'crime fighters' getting together to compare notes," she wheedled.

At that tone, his addiction reached out and ensnared him.

"Fine, but not some cheap spaghetti house," he said, trying to salvage a little of his ego in his capitulation.

"How about L'Artista, out on Mount Pleasant? Hen… I mean, I've been there before and the food is really good, it's not too noisy, we'll be able to talk. Maybe around 8:00?" Vicki coaxed.

"OK, sounds good." He sighed and then, _in for a dime, in for a dollar_, said, "So what have you got?" He cast his eyes towards Crowley's office, and holding his cell between his cheek and shoulder, pulled a pad of paper closer, scribbling notes as Vicki began to talk.

"I have a name, Gaelan…Orion Gaelan, missing person…maybe for six weeks. Political and environmental _whack-job_ and I have a list of organizations him and his wife work for or belong to. I have Coreen working on it but…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, fax me over the list. I'll see what I can get…and Vic, you owe me," he said into the phone.

"I already knew that Mike," she replied.

***

Vicki closed her phone and slipped it back in her jacket pocket. _See that wasn't so bad_ she thought.

_Way easier than actually talking to Henry is going to be_. _Why did I pick L'Artista though, that is the place Henry took me for dinner before…_she sternly steered herself away from that train of thought.

When she had faxed the list of organizations over to Mike she returned to her office, and lowered herself into her chair. The blue-lit screen of her computer taunted her from the desk. She drummed her fingers against the wood.

When she had checked her e-mail this morning, she had been more than a little disappointed to note that there had been no response from Henry to her rather barbed message of the night before.

_Alluding to His Lordship, hiding in the bushes along side of the Bike path on the seawall in Stanley Park as the vampire version of 'meals on wheels' may have been just a little much but come on…he had to admit that the image was pretty funny…right?…NOT… He is probably really mad at me. I just can't stand it when he pulls that whole affronted nobility routine…whatever!_

Though Vicki couldn't have told herself why, she heard a little voice in the back of her head telling her that she should somehow let Henry know that she was going out with Mike tonight.

She hadn't seen Mike since she had reestablished what currently passed for contact with Henry. And Henry, being Henry, had not mentioned Mike at all.

_No, why did she owe Henry any explanations? It was obvious he no longer cared what she did or with whom she did it. The ball was in his court._

She closed down her e-mail; _it was noon in Vancouver right now anyway_.

She called to Coreen "How about putting on some coffee?"

***

At 7:45 Mike stood in front of the maitre de of the L'Artista Ristorante, one hand in the pocket of his trench coat and an ancient and battered overstuffed briefcase in the other.

"Do you have a reservation?" the dapper shorter man asked, as Mike craned his neck to search the restaurant, hoping that Vic was already there. _Shit, no sign of her._

"Nelson," Mike ventured. "It's under Nelson for two."

The Maitre de regarded his schedule, "Ah yes, and right this way _Mr. Nelson,_" the man said.

Mike opened his mouth to protest, and then thought _what the hell, I'm here aren't I?_ He followed the smaller man to a booth in front of the window. Refusing the offer to part with his coat; he took it off, followed by his jacket and then his tie, and folded the clothing on the seat beside him. When the waiter came over with the wine list, Mike ordered a beer. He folded his hands on the table and waited.

_I don't know how she does it, _he mused. _How is it that she can ask me to check out a list of known associates and organizations on her missing person case, and I end up with a carbon copy of the organizations I am investigating in the Parker/Hakito cases? _

_Better yet, four months ago, Hakito and Orion Gaelan had had a confrontation at a protest staged in front of Hakito's Furrier's that had resulted in a broken camera and a suit in small claims court. Does she have some sort of radar? Sonar? A spy in the department? Here he pictured Dave for a moment as Vic's operative, but then quickly passed on the image. The stress of dealing with Vicki would kill Graham for sure. This is not going to be easy…_he thought_, but then nothing about Vicki ever was.  
_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six (Dinner Conversation)**

He watched through the steamy window as the cab pulled up to the curb and saw Vicki lean forward to pass the payment to the driver. She said something and the driver laughed nodding his head in agreement. Then she swung open the door and climbed out. Leaning into the back seat she retrieved her bulging messenger bag complete with multiple fat beige file folders sticking out the top.

When Mike saw the jeans, boots and leather bomber jacket topped off with the ponytail, he was glad he had made his appearance more casual. One never knew with Vicki, but _this time_ he had read the situation right…_this was work, not a date_. He raised a hand in greeting, his smile crooked as she pointed at him through the glass.

A moment later she was at the table, Mike started to rise (_his Mama had drilled that deep into his psyche)_ but Vicki waved the maneuver off as she slid into the seat opposite.

Her face was determined. "Hey Mike, you're looking good, what'd' ya say we eat first, I'm hungry," she said in a rush as she turned to settle her messenger bag on the bench seat between her and the window.

_She looks the same, _he thought_, tired and wired and beautiful. I just want to touch her, even though I know I'll get burned. I can't stay pissed at her no matter how hard I try. Pissed at Captain Canine for deserting her, well that's another matter. She looks in a pretty good frame of mind, though, before things go south maybe I should try…_

"Vic I just wanted to say…" Mike began, but Vicki cut him off quickly.

"Let's just leave it Mike," she said spreading her palms in front of her body in a _'_hold on_'_ gesture. "We're just two old friends having a nice dinner and then exchanging some info on my case, Okay?"

_Her eyes look haunted behind those damn glasses,_ he thought. _If she only knew how much they say that she won't…_

Mike cleared his throat allowing his eyes to fall to the menu on the table top. "I think I'll have spaghetti and meatballs," he said, acquiescing to her wishes, one more time

.

"Spaghetti and meatballs and beer Mike? If I'd known we could have gone to Dino's," Vicki chided. "You said no cheap spaghetti house so…"

Mike met her eyes and said slowly, "Consider it back pay." His lips curved in a smile that though it eased the accusation in the message, did not reach as far as his eyes. Vicki's smile faltered and then brightened as she resurrected their familiar roles.

"I don't need the menu," she said as the waiter approached. Mike watched, open mouthed, as she ordered.

"Please ask the chef if he will prepare me the veal piccata. I so enjoyed the sauce the last time I was here. If he has the roasted fingerling potatoes…that would be perfect. I think the tomato and bocconcini salad to start but without the capers. We'll have a bottle of the Brunello di Montalcino as well please."

She smirked, just a little, as Mike said, "Who are you and what have you done with the real Vicky Nelson?"

***

Vicki tipped the glass and allowed the last of the wine to slip into her mouth. _Henry always did have good taste in wines…for a dead guy who lives on blood,_ she thought. _Ordering the same meal she had had the last time that she was here with Henry, had brought back a lot of memories, and most were good. If only she could ignore the persistent ache in the middle of her chest that proclaimed something integral to her existence was missing._

_This whole thing is okay with Mike…I thought it would be a lot more uncomfortable. I really only had that one bad moment there when I looked up and expected to see Henry sitting opposite of me, with his arm up on the seat back and that crooked smile on his face…come on Vicki, focus here! _

"So," she said as the waiter placed their coffees on the table, "what did you find out about Orion Gaelan?"

_Here we go, _thought Mike_. The shit is going to hit the fan big time now. _"What I found out was that Orion Gaelan is a 'person of interest' in two ongoing homicide investigations and even by sharing that, I have divulged more information than I should have Vic," he said. He was hoping for a firm and authority-filled tone, how he actually sounded to his own ears was, resigned. _Not good_, he thought.

Vicki was silent for a moment, then reached out and picked up a packet of sugar. She held it by the edge shaking sharply it several times before bringing her other hand up to open it. She leaned on her elbows holding the packet in front of her and looked at Mike intently from under her frowning brows. She drew in a breath…

_Shit,_ he thought, _I knew I wasn't going to make it,_ as his hand groped along the seat to rest on his attaché.

***

An hour later as the restaurant slowly emptied, the two of them sat heads together over the table top reviewing Mike's notes on both homicides and Vicki's notes on the organizations to which Orion Gaelan belonged and his last known movements.

"So," Vicki said as she sat back, "here's what we know. There is an organized crime connection to the two 'victims' here. There are connections to the trafficking of illegal furs and products from endangered species. There are animal rights organizations involved. Gaelan was involved in an up close and personal altercation with one of the vics. Both were drowned as a form of execution. Both had salt water in their lungs containing seal hair. The only place in anywhere nearby proximity that has a salt water pool _WITH_ seals is the Toronto aquarium. You've reviewed their security tapes for the TOD's on both vics and there is nothing on the tapes out of the ordinary. I'd like copies by the way."

Mike just nodded numbly as Vicki continued,"Gaelan has been missing for six weeks, but his credit cards have been active." She paused and then said slowly, "Maybe something…retributive? Or maybe he has gone into hiding?"

Mike interjected, running a hand through his hair, "With the organized crime connection, I'd say more likely 'retributive,'" using Vicki's euphemism.

He was interrupted by the muffled ringing of Vicki's cell from inside the depths of her bag. Mike watched as she fished around in her bag, breathing curses under her breath. She finally pulled out the phone upside down. When she flipped it over, Mike saw how she suddenly stilled. The color drained from her face, and her eyes darted to his. Before he could ask, she flipped the phone open and put it to her ear. Her voice uncharacteristically timid, she inquired.

"Henry?"

Mike frowned, he could hear the smooth voice on the other side of the line, though he could not discern the words…_fuck, I didn't know they were talking again, why, can't the blood sucker just leave her alone?_

***

"Henry?" she said timidly.

"_Victoria, this is Henry. Have I caught you at a bad time?"_

"No, no it's fine, I can talk," she said, her sharp glance warning Mike to keep quiet.

There was a pause and then he spoke again_. "Victoria…Vicki, I just wanted to apologize directly for the tone of my last e-mail, it was…inexcusable," _Henry finished.

"Yes well, I probably shouldn't have made the '_meals on wheels'_ comment," she said, her lips quirking a little at the corners. _I wonder if he can hear my heart over the phone _she thought, as it began to beat more quickly in her chest.

"_Ah well, it does have a certain…aptness of phrase," _he said dismissively. And then his voice deepened with a sudden urgency. "_Vicki I've missed…"_

"Is that the Prince of Darkness?" Mike asked in a loud voice. "Doesn't he know it's rude to interrupt someone's dinner?"

_Fuck him and white charger he rode in on_, Mike thought

There was a moment of complete silence on the phone and then Henry's voice as he almost hissed, _"Are you out with Celluci, Vicki? Please give 'your date' my apologies. I should go."_

"Henry wait!" Vicki almost shouted. She slipped out from her seat looking daggers at Mike as she did so. Unrepentant, Mike just shrugged his shoulders as he picked up his coffee. She waited a frozen moment listening for the buzzing of the disconnection, but it never came, and after a moment she said, "Henry, you still there?"

Another long pause and then his soft response reached her ears, _"Yes, may Jesu help me; I don't know why I am…but yes."_

As she started towards the door Mike heard her say… "It's not like that Henry, maybe it was in the past but not now. We are just out at a restaurant working on a case."

Over the sudden pain in his heart Mike heard the soft intonation of the vampire's response. He saw her smile as she said, "We're at L'Artista. Do you remember? …Yes, yes, and the veal. I ordered it again tonight. Oh yes it's still delicious…" Her voice was cut off as the front door of the restaurant closed behind her.

If Mike leaned forward onto the table slightly he could see her walking up and down in front of the restaurant turning every few paces and gesturing with her free arm. He kept his eyes glued to her face.

It was like watching someone suddenly become well after months of illness. As much as he wanted to curse Fitzroy, he could not. Mike could see that Henry, vampire though he was, didn't take life from Vicki, he gave it. Mike could see it in her face and hear it in her voice.

He wanted Vicki to have what she needed. He just wished that Michael Celluci was what she needed.

Mike began to gather his papers together as Vicki snapped closed her phone and returned to the table.

"Mike," she started to say, but he held up a hand.

"You know what Vic, I'm okay… it's okay. How about we go down to Flannigan's for a couple of drinks?"

Mike felt the vibration of the cell in his pocket against his hip. "Hang on," he said.

"Celluci….hey Dave…I'm off duty you know. Uh huh….right…"

Vicki's thoughts were on Henry as she gathered her things. However her attention focused as she heard one phrase of Mike's conversation clearly.

"What kind of a special project? Why? Have they found more murders? Fine, I'll be there first thing in the morning. Yes tell Crowley…first thing. See you in the morning."

As he slipped his arm into his jacket to Vicki's raised eyebrow, he replied, "Crowley has something."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 (Career Advancement)**

She gazed down onto the floor of her station, her arms crossed in front of her body, her fingers spread, drumming against the nubby tweed of her tailored jacket. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Celluci enter the room and move towards his desk.

He ran a hand through the unruly blond hair as he passed by Kate Lam's desk and he responded with a broad white smile to something she said. _Always was a flirt_, she thought, in amusement. The habitual beige trench coat flapped as he strode across the room raising a hand to his current partner, Dave Graham. He carried a bulging ancient attaché case in his hand which he set on top of his disorderly desk. _Working at home on a case_, she thought, _no wonder he was the golden boy of the department._

Slipping off the trench, he hung it on the coat rack behind him. He settled into his chair and cast a swift glance towards her office. Crowley frowned slightly and tensed, stepping back even though she knew that he couldn't see her through the silvered and smoky glass. Celluci opened the attaché. Pulling out several file folders, he returned them to the lower file drawer of his desk.

_Current case files_ _then,_ she thought. _Good, he needs to stay focused on the current and ongoing cases. The last time he started messing with cold cases and wasting her department's resources, there had been all hell to pay. She had been keeping a tight watch on him since that Mendoza fiasco. She had been keeping him on a very short leash._

_Michael Celluci, _she thought to herself_, I know that you think that I am the Wicked Witch of the West, but believe it or not you are the closest thing I have to an heir in this department._

It had been a long hard road for Allison Crowley, coming up through the ranks at a time when women on the force who didn't work in Records or Traffic were scarce. She had been a frontrunner, and had to battle stiff resistance to first her presence and then her advancement. It had been the same for every torturous step of her career.

The female officers even today met with a certain amount of resistance, especially from the 'old boy's club,' _but not on her fucking watch, or in her department by God!_ She seriously doubted that Kate Lam had ever been faced by a group of older detectives who whenever they saw her, cupped their privates and told her that she, "_didn't have the right 'tools' for the job._" She had spent years partnered with male detectives who garnered all the credit for her ideas and work. She seriously doubted that Lam had been told by a superior, sporting a suggestive smile, she would never be promoted, "_until she could grow some balls_."

Well, she had grown. She had grown a hard and abrasive demeanor, as a defense against her detractors. And she had succeeded despite them all. Her intellect coupled to a caustic personality had served her well and she had advanced well beyond any of her early tormentors who had either retired or sought other more sheltered precincts. She knew the rules, and she used them. Protocol and rules were what kept you safe, sometimes they were all that kept you alive. Protocol and rules were what kept her people safe on the force and in the street. Step outside the rules and you were on a long and slippery slope.

She had had high aspirations for Victoria Nelson, when she had first come across her, and had unobtrusively followed her career. She could have been the one, the one she would pass on all of her experience to, the one she would mentor and get behind. The one whose career she could advance, as no one had been there to advance hers. Well that had been a huge disappointment, Nelson had the brains and the feel for the work, she didn't take any shit from any one, and she attracted the very best to her. Victory Nelson should have been the centerpiece of her team. But she failed, oh she didn't succumb to a character flaw no…it was a physical weakness, her eyes gave out. All that investment and promise wasted.

_I at least still have the other half of the famous Nelson/Celluci team_, she thought.

She had transferred all of her interest to Celluci following what she still viewed as Nelson's desertion. He was, if not as brilliant and fiery as Nelson, an intuitive and gifted detective. He believed in the law and in due process with the same zeal as Crowley did herself. And if Nelson would just leave him alone, a long and distinguished career in law enforcement was ahead of him.

_If Nelson would just leave him alone_…she thought. _The ex-cop turned PI was always nosing around the station and around her detectives; Celluci had a particular weakness for her. Nelson was like a god-damned vampire, _she thought,_ sucking the life out of Celluci's career. She was damned if she was going to allow Nelson to fuck things up for Celluci, not her golden boy._

So she watched, and she kept track, and she made sure that Nelson knew she wasn't welcome in any capacity in the station. Now she had an opportunity available, and she was going to make sure that Celluci took advantage of it.

She descended the stairs and walked across the floor towards Celluci's desk. As she approached she watched him rise from his chair with two black surveillance tapes in his hand. She knew the moment he saw her, he stiffened slightly and then forced himself to relax. He laid the cassettes on the desk top and rested his fingers on top as she spoke. "Surveillance tapes, Celluci?"

"Copies from the Toronto Aquarium in the Parker and Hakito homicides," he replied. "I wanted to do some reviewing at home."

"Hmmm!" she said, "Did you spot anything?"

He shook his head, "no, not yet, but I want to review them again. I just have this gut feeling..."

_The famous Celluci intuition,_ she thought, _I_ _wish I could debunk it…but he gets results._

"My office in five minutes, bring Lam and Graham," she said turning on her heel.

***

Mike shifted uneasily in his chair and looked across to Dave. The rotund detective sat in apparent calm except for the smallest twitch at the side of his right eye and the slightly asthmatic rasp of his breathing. Mike knew his partner and he was pretty sure Dave was jonesing for a nic stick big time. He always did when he was nervous.

_Is there any way that Crowley can already know I shared confidential police records with Vic last night, any way she knew that I had copied the surveillance tapes for her…? I don't think so…fuck, the woman has the ability to make me feel like a seven year old in the principal's office._

Mike consciously forced his body to relax down into the chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. _Hell, she's not even in the room yet._

Kate came in and cast a rather withering look at Mike and then Dave. _She thinks whatever shit Dave and I have gotten ourselves into that we have somehow managed to drag her into the muck as well. _He smiled experimentally at her and was rewarded with a quizzical, _'Can someone tell me what is going on?' _look.

All eyes turned to Crowley as she came in and crossed directly to her desk. She sat straight-backed in her chair and placed her clasped hands on the top of the desk. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, a style as severe and uncompromising as her gaze. Mike, by sheer self control kept himself from flinching as that gaze fell on him.

_At least be happy there is a desk between you,_ he thought, _if she was right next to me I'm not sure I could keep from cringing. The force of her personality is almost as intimidating as the royal undead bastard's._ A ripple of gooseflesh skittered between his shoulder blades and his attention was snapped back to Crowley as she started to speak.

"I have received and approved a request from both the Homicide and Organized Crimes Units of the Greater Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP. They are working on three cases all of which bear marked similarities to the Parker and Hakito cases which you are working. They are asking for our assistance in establishing a joint team to investigate this series of _executions_. They want us to send one of our team to Vancouver to work in tandem with their detectives. That's you Celluci."

_Not so much as a "Do you mind? Please. Or a by your leave?" _was Mike's first thought, followed almost immediately by, _Christ! Fucking Fitzroy is in Vancouver! Great just fucking great!_

Crowley continued, "Lam, I want you to partner up with Graham while Celluci is out of town, and I want the two of you to keep him apprised immediately of any new information on these ongoing investigations."

Such was the force of her personality that Dave and Kate only shook their heads up and down in immediate agreement. Mike sputtered once or twice and as Crowley's eyes swung back to him she said, "This has the makings of a very high profile case Detective, surely you have no objection to an assignment that stands to provide substantial advancement to your career?"

Mike managed to shake his head no, finally clearing his throat and saying, "No, no objections, when do I leave?"

***

A little more than an hour later Mike was walking to his car, attaché and airline ticket in hand. He glanced up past the red and white flag snapping in the breeze, to the clear blue of the early morning sky. There were thin white clouds scudding across the azure field high above him. The air was full of the familiar sounds of the parking lot and the surrounding city. _It has just gone ten now, my flight is at five, if I leave an hour for security, I'll need to check in at four and I'll probably need at least an hour to get out to the airport by cab. Maximum, I have maybe five hours to get ready and leave my life in some semblance of order._

_***_

It didn't take too long to drag his suitcase out from under the bed and load up his essentials, _he hoped that his contact in Vancouver, what was it…Detective Kavanaugh, knew a good dry cleaner, I'm going to need one,_ he thought, looking at the rumpled array of shirts he had packed over top of his few remaining clean ones. He packed his sweats and casual wear in a second duffle along with his kit_. I've always heard that the Stanley Park trails and seawall were a great place to run and bike_ he thought as he shoved his runners in the end pocket of the duffle. _Now I guess I am going to get a chance to find out._

***

As the door to her office opened, Vicki glanced up from the Gaelan file, spread across her desk. She pushed her glasses back up higher on her nose and as her eyes focused on the figure in the door she said, "Life finally just too much for you, are you running away from home Mikey?" Her eyes rested on the suitcase and duffle that Celluci dropped to the floor then rose back to his face inquiringly.

"You are not going to f'ing' believe it Vic," Mike said as he crossed the room and dropped a file folder in front of her. "Crowley just loaned me out to the Greater Vancouver PD…special task force, I have a plane to catch at five."

"A special task force?" Vicki raised her eyebrows. "Let me guess," she said as she laid a palm on the crime scene photos that currently littered her desk courtesy of the very annoyed detective who stood in front of her. "Vancouver has a case which is similar to the Parker/Hakito homicides?"

Mike flopped tiredly into a chair across from her desk nodding, "Three actually, though Vancouver is calling them executions," and then he held up a hand as Vicki drew in the breath. "Before you ask, I haven't been briefed yet. When I am, if there is something _I feel_ relates to your case, I'll call you."

"You better buster!" she said, and then continued with a smile, "Hey at least you're familiar with Vancouver's resident vampire. You'll have to drop by some evening and pay your respects, maybe say, "Hi" for me. Henry sent me his new address yesterday even..."

"Vic, I'm not going anywhere near _'My Liege the Leech.'_ I was never so happy to see the ass end of someone as I was of Fitzroy." Mike stormed. "I finally have 4400 klicks distance between us and now that witch Crowley is sending me right into his lap."

Vicky smiled more broadly. "If I were you…I wouldn't tell Henry you were glad to see his ass, you know how he is about compliments on his physique." She teased, barely suppressing a giggle at the image of Crowley forcing Mike to sit in Henry's lap.

"Very funny Vic!" He grimaced and then continued, "Here is the contact info for where I'll be staying in Vancouver," withdrawing a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket and laying it on the desk. He pulled two cassettes from his side pocket and laid them on top of the folder. "And these are the surveillance tapes from the Aquarium." He sighed. "Please leave Dave and Kate alone on this one Vic, Crowley is on high alert and they just don't need the heat. I'll call you when I get settled in Vancouver. OK?"

Vicki came around her desk and surprised him by uncharacteristically placing a light kiss on his cheek and saying, "Have a good flight Mike, keep in touch."

"And…" he prompted.

Vicki sighed and held up her hand in the attitude of one taking an oath, "And…I promise to leave Graham and Lam alone while you are away."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight (Vancouver after Dark)**

Dark. He revered the dark; familiar and enveloping, the return of life, the warm dark.

The first time that he had awakened to feel truly comforted by the cloaking darkness was the first time he had acknowledged deep within him what he had truly become. He drew in a second, calmer breath and opened his eyes.

To a human the room would be utterly dark. To the vampire the objects in, and the parameters of the space were clearly defined. He did not require the reflection of light for his perception of the world around him.

Henry turned over onto his side on the bed, sensuously stretching out his back and then his limbs, the whispered sigh of silken sheets across his skin a pleasant undertone to the symphony of reawakening nerve endings.

_I should rise, the night is short,_ he thought, but overcome by a moment of lassitude, he flipped over to his back again on the bed and for a moment simply allowed himself the luxury of extending his senses untrammeled.

The air was heavy with scents, most notable, the bank of orchids that covered the console; virtually scentless to humans, for Henry they possessed an alluring and mysterious perfume. Neither animal nor vegetative he thought but rather ethereal, like their beauty. Since taking up residence on the West Coast of Canada he had become enamored of these strange and exotic beauties.

He smiled to himself, _if I had a therapist, _he thought_, I am sure she would make a great deal of my attachment to such a symbiotic plant._ Underlying the fragrance of the orchids were the more mundane scents of the room around him, wood and wool, polish and cleaner. The tang of the stainless steel of the metal shutters covering the windows, his own scent and the faintest trace of the blood scent from the jacket which he had left lay over the arm of the low slung chair.

If the individual scents in the air were jumbled and blended together like the melody of a piece of familiar music, then the underlying thread of the bass line was the salty, living scent of the sea. Its quickening scent was always around him now, a vast and dissolute living force, powerful and all encompassing. The vampire was both attracted and repulsed by the magnitude of that life.

Even as its verdant scent encompassed the environment so did its endless voice pervade the night. The consistent rumbling of the ocean's breath colored every other sound that rode over it. The sounds of the city night muffled through the shades, the sound of the wind as it whined around his tower, the slow measured beat of his own heart —all underscored by the breath of the sea.

He smiled and extended his tongue to moisten his lower lip. He could taste it, the salt of life, borne on the very air.

He rolled suddenly and silkily to his feet, padding across the hardwood to pick up the remote from the chair where he had tossed it along with his coat in the early morning hours. He swiveled his head as he moved past, savoring the residual blood scent from his _assignation_ of the previous evening. As the interior and exterior shutters withdrew he was greeted by a panoramic floor to ceiling view of the ocean and the downtown streets of English Bay off to his left. In the distance traffic flowed in a steady stream of lights across first the Burrard Street and then the Granville Street bridges. Were he to cross through to his living room-studio, he would be greeted by the same ocean view except on the right where the shadowed bulk of Stanley Park loomed dark on the water.

Augustus had truly outdone himself in finding and altering this penthouse to Henry's needs. His old friend had been rightfully proud as he had shown the apartment to Henry that first night.

Henry crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on the wall looking out over Vancouver, _his_ city.

He shook his head slightly as he remembered his arrival in Vancouver _was it really almost six months ago?_ Augustus could see that the vampire was "_in a bad way,_" as he put it, and had brought him to see the place before the necessary renovations were complete. Surrounded by the drywall and plastic drop sheets and ladders, Henry had stared sadly through the glass, wishing only to be in a different city, far from the sound of the sea. Yet even in his pain the location had in some way soothed him. He found his thoughts returning to it again and again in something akin to anticipation, through the long month he had stayed at one of Augustus's safe houses in the West End. Now it was his new home and from it he ruled his new territory. And if he kept himself separate from the close human companionship that he had come to crave, well, new places required new habits after all.

Crossing to the closet he quickly slipped on a soft and faded pair of jeans and then opened the double doors to his living room/studio. He collected the remote on his way past the desk and pushed the button as he moved through to his kitchen. He opened a cupboard and withdrew a liter bottle of spring water. Removing the seal, he lifted it to his lips and drained down half the bottle in a few swift swallows. _It always amused her, _he thought, _that I prefer my water room temperature, or to use her words,' body temperature.' _Carrying the bottle with him he moved back into his living room.

He had no eyes for the sky and ocean horizon revealed as the shades retracted, his attention was solely focused on the laptop closed on his desk. He flipped open the top and was momentarily blinded by the blue light of the screen. _I really do have to get back in the habit of turning a lamp on here and there, _he thought. _I'll speak to Augustus; the last time he was bothering me about it he said there was some sort of a timer? _

As he checked his incoming e-mail, he was disappointed, nothing from . He was slightly annoyed with himself for having returned so quickly to eagerly awaiting her attention.

_Where is your vaunted, princely pride Fitzroy? _He thought_. I tried; I really tried to forget her. She spurned me for God's sake…forgive me Father…Six months without a word, and then out of the blue, unbelievably, one evening...How is Vancouver?...Miss you ...V. Those few simple words and his heart so long denied had stirred to life once more._

_You are a fool Fitzroy, a four hundred and eighty year old fool..._he shook his head.

Last night...last night he had called her, without thought or consideration of the ramifications. The sudden desire to hear her voice had been overwhelming. He had wanted to apologize, to tell her, to tell her that he...and that was when he had heard Celluci's voice. He had almost rung off, almost...not once had he been able in all their written correspondence to ask her if she was with the "human" and she had never indicated...

When he had heard Celluci's voice he thought that his heart would shatter and even then, even then he had waited, had hoped... She said that she and Celluci were nothing more than friends. That once they had found comfort in each other's arms, but that was in the past, and once again he had allowed himself to believe...

The ringing of his cell started him from his reverie. In a blur he was standing by his bedside table looking down on the small cell phone screen. It was Vicki; with the time difference it had to be at least 12:30 am in Toronto. He let it ring once more and then picked it up. "Henry speaking," he said.

Her voice responded as his sensitive hearing picked up her heart's distinctive beating, and memory provided her scent and image. "Hey Hank...you still at home or are you, "_on the prowl?_"

_I hate it when she brings up our differences at the beginning of every conversation_, he thought, yet his tone was carefully schooled as he said calmly, "I fed yesterday evening Vicki. I don't_ need_ to feed tonight," he put a heavy emphasis on the word need, "so no, I am not, as you so quaintly put it, _on the prowl_. I am working on the outline for the new novel this month so I had thought I might do some sketching this evening." By the time he had reached the end of the sentence his tone had normalized. "Are you working that new case?" he asked as much to change the subject as from interest.

"Yup, the missing person case, I told you about yesterday, that Mike and I were discussing over dinner," she said.

Henry's retracted fangs ached at the idea, but he managed to respond civilly enough. "And did the good detective manage to provide you with any particularly useful information?"

"Actually yes, seems that my missing person case is related to two homicides that are currently under investigation."

Henry felt the slightest stirrings of sympathy for Celluci; he knew what it was like to be trying to keep something confidential that Victoria wanted to know...

"And Henry," she said pausing for effect, "you will never guess what."

Henry sighed gustily. "Fine Vicki, I surrender, what is it that I will never guess?"

"Mike just landed at the Vancouver International Airport about an hour ago," she said

There was a long silence into which Vicki finally said, "Henry, are you there?"

***

It was a slow and pinched gait that Mike was forced to adopt as he shuffled along with the crowd of arriving passengers through the gate. He paused to look at the overhead signage searching for directions to the appropriate luggage carousel and the crowd sluggishly parted and flowed around him.

"Celluci!!" He heard a voice shout his name, and following the sound looked to his left. He saw a dark haired man of medium height holding up his police id in one hand and waving Mike over with the other.

Mike worked his way over and took the man's hand in a firm handshake. "Detective Mike Celluci, Toronto PD," he said as he looked into the startling deep blue eyes under the shock of black hair.

"Detective Liam Kavanaugh, Greater Vancouver Major Crimes, welcome to Vancouver, Detective Celluci," he said smiling.

"Call me Mike."

"Mike, the squad calls me Lee," Liam said with a shrug. "Let's grab your bag and get out of here. I have your rental out in the parking lot."

***

Mike laid his arm along the seat and regarded the red sunset that painted the striated clouds of the evening sky, the mountains of the North Shore standing as purple shadowed masses beneath. By the time they had retrieved his bags, gotten out of the airport, and headed into town it was after eight p.m. and the sun was settled below the horizon.

_No wonder I'm tired_, he thought. _When I went to work this morning, I had no idea I would be in Vancouver tonight._ He looked out at the blood red sky reflected in the passing windows of the high rise buildings as they crossed the Burrard Street Bridge.

Lee waved his arm off to his left, "Stanley Park is off that way. If you're a runner, the seawall is great and there are also some challenging trails. There are lots of restaurants and clubs on Robson and Denman, fair bit of night life if you are into that scene, not that you'll probably have much time for that kind of thing."

Mike felt a little more at home as the tall buildings and cityscape of downtown Vancouver surrounded them; enclosed in the concrete canyons of the business center he could have been back in downtown Toronto. The steady stream of traffic and the multitude of pedestrians on the streets as they waited to make the left from Burrard onto Robson were part of a familiar and comfortable landscape. The looming mountains he could view through the open ends of the intersections were not.

"The Stanley Hotel isn't the poshest place in the city," Lee said as they headed along Robson towards the park, "but it is centrally located and is very close to the park and tall enough that the rooms have some decent views. There's underground parking and the rooms are larger than most so you'll be able to spread out a bit. The department has an arrangement with the management; we put up most of our visitors there, so if you need anything at all the front desk should be able to help you."

Mike nodded, his eyes on the dark silhouette of the forest of Stanley Park, black against the deep blue twilit sky.

"The hotel restaurant, well…it's not exactly the best," Lee said with a grimace, "but the breakfast buffet is passable. There are plenty of good places to eat along Denman as you head over to English Bay."

"And you said the Aquarium is in Stanley Park proper?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, after the briefing tomorrow, I'll take you around to the crime scenes, and to the Aquarium…though just like your cases, the security tapes really don't show anything, but at least you have only the one source of saltwater close by, which narrows it in a bit," Lee said.

Mike jerked his chin in the direction of the back seat as they pulled into the parking lot of the 'Stanley.' "Thanks for the copies of the files, I want a chance to look them over with a fresh eye before the briefing tomorrow. You never know what will pop out."

Lee smiled, "I think we're going to work well together Mike."

***

Half an hour later Mike stood with one hand in his pocket on the small balcony of his room. He sipped his scotch on the rocks, the ice clinking gently in the glass as the smooth chilled liquid slipped over his tongue. He looked broodingly out over the dark treed expanse of the park towards the brightly lit towers of English Bay.

He could smell the salt tang of the ocean in the air and the sounds of the street fifteen floors down were a pleasantly muted reminder of the nightlife that continued below him. His eyes watched the glowing line of headlights and tail lights on the Georgia Street entrance to the Stanley Park Viaduct. They all disappeared around that first turn into the velvet dark of the silent trees.

He had discarded his jacket and tie as soon as he was alone in the room. Now he ran a hand through his hair and then tiredly scrubbed at his face. His cheeks and chin were stubbled with a long day's growth. _Get your shaving kit out of your duffle bag_, he reminded himself.

He leaned one hand on the railing and stared out into the night.

_Are you out there?_ he thought, _Are_ _you out prowling the streets of your new city? Are you standing in the shadows watching and learning, studying the humans of Vancouver? Are you hunting them…right now?_

Another sip of the smooth chilled liquid. He had pumped Kavanaugh pretty mercilessly about crime statistics in Vancouver, and without being too obvious had inquired about any "strange" cases in the city. It had become clear that Lee had no idea that there was a resident vampire in his jurisdiction or that such a thing as vampires even existed.

Mike smiled grimly, thinking _it would be almost worthwhile to let Kavanaugh know that the Prince of Darkness was draining the citizenry of Vancouver right under his nose…it would probably cause all kinds of problems for fang boy…but really what had Kavanaugh ever done to him to deserve that kind of a headache…_

_Well, ignorance is bliss_, he thought. _I remember when my world was a whole fucking lot simpler, before I found out what really walks the night. Are you out there bloodsucker?_

***

The wind was brisk, on the roof garden, even in the latter portion of the summer night. Its insistent fingers ruffled his hair out behind him and pushed at the blue silk of his shirt until it was molded flat to the planes of his chest and flapping gently at his back. Surrounded by the night blooming clematis, columbine and evening primroses of his garden, this was the highest point of his sanctuary. He could stand at the railing and gaze out over his territory, high above the bustling humans below.

The wind was too brisk tonight for even his senses to catch the sweetness of the nicotiana on the air as its white trumpets waved and bobbed in the wind.

He had left his sketches spread out across his work table below in his studio. The work was progressing well but he had been strangely restless throughout the night and finally he had climbed to his roof garden and now pondered the source of his unease. According to Vicki; Celluci, his rival, was in his new territory. The human to whom he had surrendered the field, who posed a threat to his fondest desire, now slept somewhere in proximity. He knew that Celluci would keep his secret, of that he had no doubt, but he could still cause an untoward amount of trouble for Henry, should he be so inclined.

The heated argument he had with Vicki had left him feeling worn and overwrought. _I should have hunted, if for nothing other than the distraction, _he thought. The vampire felt exposed and at risk, but in the end he had promised _no revise that_, had been _forced_ to promise Vicki, that he would do nothing to discomfort Celluci. Well, that did not mean that he could not find him and _observe._

Henry turned and paced out the perimeter of his moonlit garden, and eventually the voice of the sea and the heady beauty of the night blooming plants eased the restlessness of his spirit. He could feel the earliest warnings of the sun's return in perhaps an hour. He still had more drawing he needed to accomplish.

_Tomorrow evening, after I feed, I will seek out Celluci. _


	9. Chapter 9

His breathing was an uneven and irregular series of ever deepening inhalations, for the first five hundred yards of his run. Soon enough though, his body orchestrated the concerted effort of his limbs, heart and lungs and the natural and unconscious rhythm of his gait began to emerge. By the time he was passing by the Rowing Club just inside the park's entrance, his feet had found their stride and he could feel his pulse settle to its working rate.

God! He had to admit this was a beautiful city, and at half past six in the evening the sun was still high enough to paint the landscape in vibrant shades of green, and shimmer off the crumpled surface of the Burrard Inlet.

The guy at the hotel front desk had told him that the seawall around Stanley Park was 8.8 kilometers in length. "You can't get lost," he said, "Just keep to the wall and the water on your right." He had told Mike that when he got to Second Beach he could choose to go into English Bay and come back to the hotel along Denman and hit a Starbucks or a juice bar, or he could continue along a footpath around Lost Lagoon and end up back at the park entrance at Georgia. Mike hadn't decided yet; right now he was just enjoying the feel of working the stress of a long day of briefings from his body.

He was rounding the turn into Brockton Point and the whole of the North Shore of the city was laid out before him across the water. The angled golden light of the sun painted the populated slopes of the mountains in a high relief pattern of light and shadow.

_I'm glad I spent that time reviewing the case file Lee gave me last night. If I hadn't I would have been completely lost in those briefings today. My head feels like it is stuffed with so much random information that it should be trickling out my ears. I need some time to just let it process all on its own. It's like Vic always says…if you toss all the pieces in the air, when they settle again some sort of a pattern always emerges._ He tried to ignore the sudden pain under his ribs at the thought of Vicki. _I am going to have to call her and bring her up to speed when I get back to the hotel._

For a few moments he gazed downwards watching his feet striking the pavement as he ran and then glancing up caught the eye of one of two trim twenty-something women jogging towards him.

One nodded and murmured, "Hello" as they came up alongside and the other smiled and said, "Great night for a run." He had time to say a quick, "Yeah" before they were past. _Coreen was right_ he thought,_ people are friendlier here on the West Coast_.

_Five executions that we have identified so far_, he thought, _at least five that we know of. The_ _guys in organized crimes here had at first thought it was some turf war among the criminal organizations in town, some hostile takeover, but the executions cut across the various organized crime groups and families, and now across at least two provinces. The thought was now that there was some sort of vigilante extremist group or environmental terrorist group behind the executions. There were many legitimate groups operating in efforts to protect and preserve the environment and protect endangered or exploited species, sometimes small cells of extremists took matters too far. _

"Behind you!" a voice chimed out and two cyclists sped by on the one way bike lane a second after warning of their presence. Startled from his thoughts Mike looked up to see the bulk of the Lion's Gate Bridge looming before him, the beams and girders of the bridge's undercarriage and structure revealed high above his head. He could hear the rumble of the cars passing far overhead as traffic headed to the North Shore.

The pedestrian path narrowed to a series of switchbacks under the bridge proper and for a few moments he had to pay close attention to his footing. He realized that he had been running in shadow for the last few minutes as the sun was blocked by the trees topping the cliffs above him. As he cleared Prospect Point and began to run towards Siwash Rock he was heading almost due south and the westering sun hung as a brilliant orange globe a hand span over the horizon to his right. The surface of the water was painted brilliant white gold, mossy rocks glimpsed just below the shining surface. His own shadow ran black from his feet and bent to pass along on his left, following him, drawn stark in silhouette on the shale cliff wall that butted up against the foot path.

_I can't shake the idea that we only have one half of the picture here,_ he thought. _I guess it was the info on Orion Gaelan that Vicki gave me provided kind of a key. He is missing, and a preliminary search has turned up two other missing persons whose names are connected to either Gaelan or through three or four organizations. No one but no one attacks organized crime with impunity; these missing persons were not random. Lee was assigned to check out the Vancouver Aquarium and two other groups —one in Vancouver and the other in Deep Cove. Both were associated with the rescue and protection of marine mammals. Of course, as new man out, I get assigned the Victoria connection. Well I suppose it makes a certain sort of sense; Lee would be just as much a stranger in Victoria as I am._

As the Siwash Rock loomed up on his right he passed through a bar of deep shadow where the path ran between the Rock and the cliff. Siwash Rock standing just off shore was topped by a huge wind bent tree, a black cutout against the brilliant sun that now dipped its lower edge in the ocean. As he headed towards Ferguson Point he passed by Third Beach and he had to slow his pace briefly to weave in and out among the pedestrian traffic. He could hear snatches of conversation as he watched the picnickers and families packing up their bags and blankets as the night drew closer. Once past the beach he picked up the pace again and was aware that the trees crowded in tall and dense close alongside the path. The shadows between the trunks of these old growth giants lengthened and deepened as the sun inched lower on the horizon, slowly extinguishing itself in the water.

_Orion Gaelan is a card carrying member of the Victoria Aquatic Mammal Protection Society_, _even though he was based out of Toronto. Astrid Evanston was another missing environmentalist based in Vancouver, who is also a member of the Victoria society. That is too big a coincidence to ignore. I just know that the more we expand our search the more connected missing persons we are going to encounter. Those offices will be the first place I think I will visit when I get to Victoria._

From the seawall he took a secondary footpath up to the cliff top to look out over the water. The sun was half drowned now and the landscape was beginning to lose its sharp focused detail to the shadows of the evening. The large ships at anchor out in the water were black silhouettes in the brilliance. When he looked towards the Park Drive he could see the Teahouse Restaurant. It was a twinkling yellow lit jewel nestled in the shadows of the second growth forest surrounding it. The aroma of the cedar plank seared salmon on the breeze from the open grill made Celluci's stomach suddenly rumble. However, the expensive cars in the lot and the white linen clad tables visible through the beveled glass windows dissuaded him from dining in his sweats. He took the steps three at a time back down to the seawall and headed towards Second Beach. He decided that he would head home via Denman Street and stop for a bite of dinner in English Bay.

***

_Henry:_

_I'm sorry that we argued AGAIN. When I stopped to think about it, you're right Henry. I don't have any right to try to tell you who you can or cannot feed on in your own territory, so I'm sorry that I wrung that promise out of you. _

_BUT I can ask you not to make my life any more complicated than it already is. Please do not bother Mike while he's in Vancouver._

_V_

Henry shook his head in exasperation as he re-read Vicki's e-mail. _Yesterday_ _I allowed her to bully me into agreeing to something and now she tells me that she is sorry and that I don't have to do what I promised but then tells me would I mind doing it anyway as a favor. Whatever made her think that I want to feed on Celluci? Though it would be a marvelous challenge to get him to…?_

Henry rubbed at the growing discomfort between his brows, which he strongly suspected was directly related to the tension in his shoulders.

_I'll shower and change and then go out. I'll talk to Vicki later, _he thought_._

No more than half an hour later, Henry emerged from the elevator in the lobby of his building.

"Beautiful evening, Mr. Fitzroy," Tanya, the night guard, said.

Henry smiled beguilingly at her, pausing for a moment beside the desk. "Good evening, Tanya. Yes, it appears to be quite a lovely evening; I think perhaps I'll take a stroll down along Denman. I have been working away on some drawings all afternoon and evening and I want to rest my eyes a bit. I haven't dined as yet and I thought…"

"You should try the new Italian place on Denman, Gardeno something or other. Stevo says their red sauce is to die for." Tanya interrupted.

Henry turned away and as he made his way through the door said over his shoulder, "To die for? Hmmm…perhaps I'll try it. Thank you Tanya."

Henry walked along through the crowds on the street and enjoyed the warm night air and the thrumming of the life forces around him. He had not been in this territory long enough to feel it necessary to limit his feeding to a safer distance from his sanctuary. Eventually, he knew, the luxury of feeding so close to his resting place would have to be sacrificed to secrecy.

Though he nodded amiably to a couple of faces that he recognized, he had generally kept his distance from his prey. He had become far too entangled and exposed in Toronto and he did not intend to repeat that mistake here.

The vampire was in the earliest stage of his hunt; the hunger was definitely present, but not as yet pressing. It was the stage that Vicki had once described as "_previewing the buffet_." _Crass,_ he thought with a slight smile playing about his lips, _but essentially correct. There will be something, someone, some scent, that will bring the hunter. _

When he concentrated, he could scent the food and drink in the air as he strolled past an outdoor bistro. Those were scents that he had long ago learned to filter from his consciousness as unimportant and extraneous information, his attention always drawn first and foremost to the scent of his prey. Concentrating, he brought into focus the hum of conversation and the clinking of china and silverware that was a distinctly _human _and charming counterpoint to the traffic rolling slowly by at the edge of the wide sidewalk. He considered that counterpoint as he willed his perception of the individual heart beats of the humans surrounding him to fade to a muted pulse. He manipulated his senses consciously and in this way he was able to close the gap between himself and the humans among whom he walked. It was a well rehearsed and necessary part of the masquerade.

Henry glanced at the sign over the bistro's open french doors, "Giardino di Notte," he read. _The Night Garden…so this is the place with the red sauce to…_

Henry stopped in his tracks, lifting his chin as the breeze shifted and a familiar scent registered.

_His rival, he could scent him in close proximity, where?_

***

_Well that cannelloni just undid the last 8 K that I ran_, Mike thought as he pushed the plate away across the table cloth and picked up his wine glass. _Not as good as his grandma's but the red sauce definitely had something. _Mike turned his head to search for the waiter. _A dessert might not be a bad…what the fuck! _

He felt the force of the vampire's personality surround him before he saw Fitzroy. Mike swung his face back around and pushed back from the table in one abrupt movement. The bloodsucker was sitting at ease smiling, arms across his chest, in the chair across from him. Mike watched him tilt his head to one side in a familiar gesture. Fitzroy's blue eyes were intent.

"Welcome to Vancouver, Constable," the vampire purred. "To what, do we owe the honor of your presence?"

"Fuck Fitzroy, do you have to do that?" Mike said as he pulled his chair back towards the table, glancing from side to side, though the other patrons all seemed oblivious to the exchange.

The vampire inclined his head gracefully. "My apologies…I am sorry to have startled you," he said after a moment. Breaking his eye contact and glancing down he brushed momentarily at a nonexistent bit of something on his stylish jacket. He appeared to test the air and then wrinkled his nose slightly in an expression of distaste.

Mike, who always felt rather unkempt and grubby when in the vampire's presence, was suddenly acutely aware of his post run dishevelment. _He fucking looks exactly the same,_ Mike thought grumpily_, the perfect picture, not a hair out of place. But then, he never is going to change, a hundred years from now he will still look exactly the same. _"Sorry if '_parfum de Celluci'_ offends your sensitive nose, your undead Highness," he ground out as he plucked at his damp sweatshirt. "Eight kilometer runs usually affect us humans that way."

Henry leaned on his forearms on the table. He looked intently into Celluci's face and said tersely, "Keep your voice down, Detective. I have to live here." There was no compulsion in his voice, no power beyond that of his own personality. "It is not the smell of human sweat that offends me, in fact as scents go it is rather stimulating. Glancing meaningfully at the sirloin steak dinner sitting on the table top across from them, he continued, his voice pitched low, "It is the scent of roasted dead animal flesh that is difficult to endure."

The waiter appeared at the table with the dessert menu. Mike watched as the vampire cocked an eyebrow, he knew that the bloodsucker was waiting to see what he would do. _You're not running me off Fitzroy…if that is what you think,_ he thought petulantly.

"I'll have the tiramisu," he told the waiter, "and a cappuccino." Mike sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. _Your turn captain canine,_ he thought.

The waiter turned to Henry. "And for you sir…" he asked, his pen poised over his paper.

Henry's eyes never left Celluci's face as he responded smoothly. "I haven't as yet, dined this evening," he paused, his eyes crinkling in amusement as Celluci stiffened slightly, "but I am a little thirsty." He turned his face lazily towards the young man, "A Pellegrino please, room temperature, no ice and do not chill the glass…perhaps some lime?"

When the waiter had turned away Mike said to the vampire, "So, your Lordship, you don't seem particularly surprised to see me here in Lotus land."

"Actually, Victoria had mentioned to me that you had flown in yesterday evening." Henry responded smoothly, settling a little further back in his chair. _I am not going to tell you that she made me promise not to do what I am doing right now,_ Henry thought.

He could sense the increase in Celluci's heart rate at the mention of Vicki and thought, _Vicki may be telling HER truth when she says its over between you, but it does not seem that she is telling YOURS._

Henry continued, "She did say it was something to do with two homicides related to the missing person case that she is working on." He nodded to the waiter as the young man poured a portion of the sparkling water into his glass.

"Yeah, the Gaelan case," Mike paused and then said, "that was the one we were discussing over dinner the other night, when you called." _Direct hit,_ he thought as he lifted a forkful of the sweet coffee-flavored confection to his lips and watched the vampire's jaw tighten.

"And that brings you to _MY_ city because…?" Henry prompted. _I hate how Celluci has the capacity to irritate me in this way. I hate how my eyes are continually drawn to that long tanned throat. I hate that honor prohibits me from climbing inside his head and simply taking what I want to know and I hate that he and Vicki…_

Mike could feel the building desire to tell all he knew, to confide in Henry, to please him in any way he could…. _Jesus, he doesn't even realize he's doing it,_ Mike thought suddenly. _He just really wants to know and the vampire is showing. I know what the parasite prince's compulsion feels like and this isn't it. He isn't the same; he isn't the same at all. He is much less 'human,' much less connected. You poor fuck; this is what she's done to you, isn't it?_

The air in the restaurant was charged, conversation had died, and heads were swiveling from side to side looking for the source of their sense of uneasiness. Human instincts, though dulled by civilization, were capable of perceiving the predator in their midst.

Mike pushed aside his plate and leaned forward. "I may not be the most _sensitive_ to this shit Fitzroy," he said in a voice pitched so low that only Henry could hear him, "but even I can feel the spreading sense of strangeness you are broadcasting throughout the crowd, back it down, now! You do have to _live_ here after all."

With a trembling hand, Mike raised his coffee to his lips and sipped through the foam. Forcing himself to remain leaning towards Fitzroy when every instinct was telling him to run. Then as suddenly as it had come, the sense of danger was gone.

Fitzroy raised his eyes from his glass to Mike's face. He looked…puzzled, as though his lack of control in such a public place was a complete surprise. Mike watched as the handsome and youthful face closed and the expressive eyes shuttered once more.

"My apologies again, detective," he said stiffly as he stood and withdrew a bill from his wallet, placing it on the table beside his drink. "I think perhaps I should look to my dinner, if you will excuse me."

"Fitzroy, for what it's worth," Mike heard himself say, "Vicki and me, it's over…hell it was over long before she ever met you."

The vampire nodded once, before he turned away.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 (Reel de Joie)**

The vampire hung in chains, his arms spread wide and his body marred with lashes and burns. The shadows around him seemed to indicate a church, or a crypt? He strained against the chains, his eyes black as pitch and as flat as slate. His fangs were fully extended and his breath rasped through his parted lips in a labored and tortured wheezing.

A shape emerged from the shadows and the vampire's head came around. With the rattling of chains he lunged for her. Vicki sauntered slowly towards Mike, staying just out of the vampire's reach. The vampire struggled towards her with a strangled cry, "Vicki," but she passed him by with a negligent wave of her hand. The short red dress hugged her curves and the plunging neckline showed the darkened tops of her nipples. _She_ crossed to Mike and put her arms around his neck. He felt the heated expanse of her skin as though she were fevered. Her eyes were solid black and he saw the small curved dark horns that parted her golden hair. Mike could feel the hot exhalation of her breath against him as she laid her head on his shoulder. "Hey handsome," she said in a sultry tone, and she lowered her hand to cup him through the fabric of his clothes.

The vampire roared aloud his pain and hunger, struggling to free himself. Then he quieted and Mike looked over Vicki's shoulder to meet the ebony eyes in what seemed a sudden and perfect understanding. Mike bent Vicki's head to the side and using blunt teeth tore at her neck. Her blood tasted salty and fever hot and was slickly wet on his lips and chin. The blood flowing red and dark from the wound he had made trickled down under the blue collar of her police uniform. "Now look what you've done," she said sulkily, and then smiled as Mike spun her around and pushed her towards the vampire.

Henry reached out to her and pulled her to him in a single smooth move. The chains rattled metallically as he folded Vicki, compliant, into his arms. Mike's eyes could not escape the vampire's as Henry lowered his mouth to the wound Mike had made for him. Vicki's hands knotted in his curls holding his face to her neck as she leaned against him, the full skirt of her antique gown pooling around her feet as Henry arched her backwards.

"You'll have to shoot him," Crowley advised where she stood at Mike's side. "You'll have to shoot him, if you want to save her," she said again as she placed Mike's gun in his hands.

"But I'll need silver bullets," Mike said as he patted at the material of the black cassock he was wearing, the chains at his own wrists dangling in a loose loop behind him. His hand closed around the worn black rosary beads that hung around his neck. "I had some silver bullets…I know I had some."

The vampire's eyes were ebony as he stared at Mike, his lips locked on Vicki's flesh as she now hung limp in his arms. Mike raised the gun and leveled it at the vampire. Henry lowered Vicki gently to the floor and then stood over her in a protective stance. Crowley's face lit with a malicious grin that bared fangs. "You'll have to shoot him through the heart," she cackled, "straight through the heart."

The vampire glanced down to Vicki and then back to Mike. Tears ran down the alabaster cheeks as with a rattling of his chains the vampire swung his arms wide baring his breast to the gun.

Straight through the heart...Mike sat bolt upright in the strange bed, and for a few seconds was completely disoriented, _where was Vicki, where was...he?_ The grey pre-light of the early dawn was pale through the window, leaving the unfamiliar hotel room and its furnishings in shadow.

_It was a dream, just a fucking dream__,_he thought, as he flopped backwards on the bed, the rumpled white and impersonal hotel sheets surrounding him. He remembered those bottomless black eyes and Vicki's limp form. He looked blearily towards the clock's blurring crimson numbers. Five AM. He could sleep at least a couple of more hours. He had a reservation on the eleven o'clock ferry sailing to Victoria.

_Just a dream,_ he repeated to himself as he burrowed deeper into the blankets. He had time yet.

Mike stretched himself out on his back and crossed his hands over his chest. He could feel his racing heart slowing now under his palm. He composed his body and breathed in and out in a calming rhythm. The dream had faded now and he forced himself to drift, with eyes closed. He had a little while yet until the day would claim him.

***

Theshutters slid with a reassuring click into the frames, cutting off the grey outriders of the day. Henry stretched himself out on his back and crossed his hands over his chest. He could feel his heart slowing now under his palm. He composed his body and breathed in and out in a calming rhythm. The scents and sounds around him faded now and he forced himself to drift, with eyes closed. His limbs were now no longer in his control. He waited; he had a few moments yet until the day would claim him.

***

_Tswassen Ferry Dock _

_11 AM Sailing to Swartz Bay Vancouver Island_

The ferry dock worker waved Mike forward. Watching the man's directions through the windscreen, Mike put the rental car in gear and pulled slowly ahead, following the car in front of him to the ramp. His hands gripping the steering wheel, he followed up the steep incline of the dog-legged ramp, at least four stories to the upper car deck. He was forced to pause on the ramp's steep incline and then inch forward until at the top he could see the double wide opening through which he was directed onto the car deck. Another ferry worker waved him forward towards the last car in a line, making _come closer, come closer_ motions until Mike was sure he was almost touching the other car's bumper before the worker held up his hand.

The opening and closing of car doors and trunks and the sound of cars thumping down onto the deck to the car decks beneath his feet reverberated inside the metallic hull of the ferry. Mike could feel the barely perceptible rise and fall of the vessel beneath his feet as the cars continued to load. He snatched his attaché and his trench coat from the back seat and began to follow the rest of the people towards the stairs.

_All that freaking out…wasted, _he thought. _I should have planned that a little better, and taken the ridiculous traffic into consideration. But honestly what kind of a city planner makes a tunnel with three lanes going one way and one lane going the other? I thought for sure I was going to be stuck there until after the ferry sailed…And then that frigging little old man ahead of me as I was coming into the dock…come on…15 kilometers an hour in a 50 zone, good thing I had the reservation._

At the top of the stairs he followed the flow of the other passengers and found himself standing in the cafeteria line. He could see out the windows to the outdoor deck and beyond the railing to the railway jetty beside the ferry dock. He could still hear the cars being loaded below. The water was deep grey-green and to Mike's eyes looked cold. The sky was a pale and watery blue, hazed with a thin high cloud and spotted with the hovering bodies of the gulls.

***

Setting his burger and fries on the table, he took the time to pull out a file from his attaché before he sat down to eat. The nearby tables began to fill with other passengers and the level of quiet conversation around him provided a white noise conducive to his study of the file spread out before him. He felt the slight shift and sway as the ferry pulled away from the dock, a slight rocking motion and then they were underway.

The crackling announcement over the ferry loudspeakers had said that the crossing was one hour and fifty minutes from Tswassen to Swartz Bay Terminal on Vancouver Island.

It was less than an hour into the sailing as Mike drained the cold dregs of his second cup of coffee. He set the cup aside and began to gather up the file. _I need to stretch my legs,_ he thought. _I've been re-reading the same page for the last ten minutes and nothing is sticking._ Sliding the last folder into the tightly packed attaché, he gazed through the windows to the outside deck.

The sun was high overhead and the water was a deep but sparkling blue. Mike watched the windblown hair and flapping garments of the people strolling by on the deck. _Looks pretty damn windy,_ he thought as he donned his trench coat. He ran a hand through his blond hair._ A few laps around the deck will clear my head and wake me up a bit,_ he thought.

The metal door with its double thick porthole window was far heavier than it looked, weighted against crossings where the seas were much rougher than they were today. Mike shouldered it open and then stepped over the six inch threshold. The wind pushed against him strongly as he turned his face towards the bow. His hair was blown back in a writhing mass, and the tails of his trench coat billowed and snapped behind him like a sail in the wind. He passed by a group of hearty smokers, their backs to the wind, clustered about the metal ash trays bolted to the grey deck.

The sunlight was brilliant off the water and he fished in his coat pocket for his sun glasses, watching a second ferry in the distance traveling the opposite direction. Beyond that ferry he could just make out the misty outlines of the Gulf Islands as muted dark shapes in the distance.

He was halfway up the length of the ferry and had just passed a windbreak when he heard the first strains of the melody on the wind. An enchanting tune that he could hear only intermittently, often drowned out by the flapping of his own coat tails and the crying of the gulls that hung riding the air, just off the ferry railings.

Rounding the curved bow of the ferry Mike came to a roofless, Plexiglas enclosure full of outdoor tables and seating. At first all he saw was a large group of passengers standing in a semicircle, laughing and clapping their hands and stamping their feet in time to a driving reel that was rising in the enclosed area.

The enclosure was filled to the brim with music and the wind whisked away the overflowing notes to send them spinning back along the length of the ferry. On the edges of the crowd there were children hand in hand, hopping and spinning in unfettered dance in an instinctive response as the fiddler called to their young hearts. A young boy of perhaps seven spun like a miniature whirling dervish around and around as Mike watched with a bemused smile, his own hand tapping out the rhythm against his thigh. As the fiddle fled down the final run of the tune the boy collapsed dizzily, laughing, onto the ground. Without pause the music altered and the tin whistle and the guitar took up a sprightly hornpipe.

Mike ducked inside the shelter of the enclosure and the abrupt absence of the wind felt like a magical sense of stillness, of timelessness. Crossing to the crowd Mike could see a small rather rag tag group of musicians surrounded by instruments and open cases. Guitars and fiddles, a mandolin and a beautiful red gold cello lay propped in their cases. There were five musicians sitting or standing in a group.

A frizzy haired, tall, thin man dwarfed the small bodied guitar he was playing as he stood beside a tiny pixyish woman with spiky white hair who stood tapping her feet and holding an old fiddle under her arm. She was watching the white haired man, who held the tin whistle to his lips and whose fingers tapped out the lively rhythm of the hornpipe, his chest rising and falling as his breath sent the notes soaring. He leaned towards the seated bodhràn player who was gently brushing out the rhythm against the taunt hide head, her auburn curls falling forward as she leaned her cheek on the wooden rim of the drum. Lastly, seated on a folding stool was a petit brown haired woman, compact and neatly made. She held a concertina in her lap and as the hornpipe ran down to the last of the repeats, she held in the release button on the instrument and drew out the bellows silently and gently.

"Reel de Joie," she said in a low voice, evidently announcing the name of the piece as her hands began to work the concertina's bellows as the last notes of the whistle faded away. The swelling tune started out at a moderate speed but began to repeat faster and faster until her fingers were flying over the buttons and the bellows of the instrument ran in and out like lungs breathing life into the magic she created in the music. She held the concertina on one knee and lifted and lowered both her feet in unison as she forced the tempo faster and faster. Wide grins broke out on the faces of the other musicians as they took up her challenge.

Mike felt the rhythm of the music tug at his feet and body with its own sort of magic. It gave rise to a feeling in his chest, a feeling that made him want to…_that made him want to; well I'm not sure exactly what it makes me want to do. It touches something in my heart._

Mike was standing at the edge of the semicircle of the audience gathered around the musicians, almost directly in front of the concertina player. He was watching her fingers dance over the little silver buttons and when he glanced up to her face he was met by the most soulful and doe-like brown eyes that he had ever seen. _Her eyes are liquid brown and look full of compassion and…knowledge, _he thought.

A small smile lit her face and she ducked her chin slightly in an acknowledgement of the meeting of their eyes, and then slipped seamlessly into another, gentler and slower tune. The fiddler picked up her bow again, and raised the fiddle to her chin; the two women wove a minor and plaintive piece. The two instruments mingled into a voice both mournful and fey, the music of the seafarer and of the sea.

Mike closed his eyes and let the music take him, in a waking dream of sailing over dark deep waters past mist shrouded islands, of crashing breakers on rocky coasts.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he scarcely noticed when the fiddle and concertina trailed away and the bodhràn came up underneath in a rolling driving rhythm, syncopated and insistent like waves on the shore, or like a heart's beating.

A beautiful and melodic voice caused Mike to open his eyes and he watched enchanted as the brown eyed woman sang a haunting melody interspersed with poetic words as she unraveled the story of "Peter Kagan and the Wind." Mike was enthralled with the simple beauty of the story of the selchie wife of a fisherman, who sacrifices herself to save her husband's life.

The crowd grew quiet and leaned inwards, hanging on her words, in an echo of the bardic tradition. When the last line had faded away the passengers emitted a heartfelt sigh.

The musicians began to pack up their instruments and the sound of coins joining the sizable collection of small bills in the open case at the musician's feet was tribute to the crowd's enjoyment. The people began to disperse. After making his own contribution, and having given a small smile to the brown haired, brown eyed woman who was casing her squeezebox, Mike left the enclosure. Humming the tune, Mike made his way to the stern of the boat, with the wind pressed at his back and hurrying him along the deck and the tails of his coat snapping in front of him now..


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Celluci and the Selchies (Silences)

Vicki leaned her elbows on her desk and steepled her fingers. She tapped her extended index fingers against her lower lip considering.

It was late afternoon and her meeting with Linda Gaelan and Wayne Franklin was well into its second hour.

The afternoon sun, which had lain in slatted bars across the floor, had shifted slowly with time's passage until now it painted stripes of light across the lap of Linda Gaelan where she sat fidgeting in her chair.

Linda's eyes travelled around the room, never settling or lingering anywhere for more than a second or two. She would meet Vicki's silent gaze and then her eyes would slide away to the side and resume their roving.

Linda's father Wayne Franklin sat stoic in his seat. His feet rested flat on the floor and his hands lay relaxed on the chair arms. He waited, if not at ease then certainly more controlled than his daughter as the silence in the room expanded.

Vicki listened to the muffled clatter of Coreen typing at her keyboard in the outer office. The silence assumed uncomfortable proportions.

She could sense that there was something…_something_ that Linda Gaelan was hiding. Vicki's instincts said that Linda knew more about her husband's disappearance that she simply wasn't sharing.

This was an old interrogation trick from her days on the force.

Vicki knew if you waited out a suspect in silence that sometimes the silence worked in a way that the most aggressive questioning would not.

When you silently waited, the suspect would inevitably attempt to fill the uncomfortable anticipation of that silence with chatter. It was just as inevitable that in that chatter a suspect would impart valuable? information unintentionally.

Admittedly it was a more effective technique in a precinct interrogation room with a suspect under arrest, than it was with a paying client in her office who was free to leave at any time. Still Vicki would have laid odds on the fact that Linda Gaelan would crack.

As Vicki waited for the silence to reach an unbearable level, she considered her conversation with Mike late yesterday evening. She had used the _Nelson silent treatment_ on him, and the information she had gleaned had prompted her meeting with the clients that now sat before her.

***

"Hey Vic" Mike's voice floated from the receiver, "why am I not surprised that you are picking up on the second ring, at…what, 2:00 AM Toronto time? Are you staying up late waiting around for anyone in particular to call?"

Vicki cleared her throat and hoped that the disappointment that it wasn't Henry on the other end of the line didn't show in her voice.

"Only you Mike, only you," Vicky said. "So you got anything for me?"

She had, through judicious application of long silences and a practiced form of emotional coercion, eventually extracted detailed information on all three of the Vancouver murders under current investigation, and also learned that, including Orion Gaelan, there were three missing persons associated with the environmental activist groups.

She had shared with Mike the information that Coreen had gleaned from her research. Two more activists, both female and both onetime members of the crew of the Lila were also reported missing, by family members. Unlike Gaelan there appeared to be no activities on either their phone records or credit cards.

Coreen was still digging through news reports and footage of the protests surrounding the spring seal hunt and the confrontations between the protesters and the sealers. There were also mountains of reports on poaching and confrontations between activists and those caught poaching.

Vicki had an unconfirmed suspicion that the Lila had not sailed to the ice from Lunenburg as she was supposed to because of pressure brought to bear on her captain.

She had had one unsatisfactory telephone conversation with the captain who had at first been cooperative in answering her inquiries about Orion Gaelan but who had become sullen and withdrawn at the continued questions about his failure to sail as planned. Mike had agreed that it bore further investigation.

Mike had also shared additional information that had turned up in regards to Orion Gaelan's credit card and banking records. It seemed that he had credit cards that his wife knew nothing about and a bank account in his sole name. There were multiple cash withdrawals and credit card charges recently dated in both Vancouver and Victoria. Either someone had access to his cards and codes, or Mike and Vicki needed to revise their original estimation that Gaelan had been the victim of a retributive hit.

Vicki had a gut feeling that Gaelan was tied up in the murders in some way but that he was alive and for some reason hiding from his wife in either Vancouver or Victoria.

Before they had broken off the call, Vicki asked the one question that Mike had been dreading.

"So, what's up with Henry? I know you Celluci; you would have found out where he lives and driven by his place to check it out first thing."

"I told you Vic, I never want to see that blood sucking freak again. And if you feel that you _have_ to talk to him, tell him to stay the fuck away from me," Mike said forcefully. The whole time thinking, _it's sort of the truth, I only said I never want to see him again, which is true, unless she asks me outright if I have already seen him since I arrived here then it won't really be a lie._

_Mike couldn't help but remember, in the restaurant a few hours earlier, the terrible pressure of the vampire's 'otherness.' _

_The Henry he had seen here in Vancouver was a different creature than the contained graphic novelist of Toronto. For a few moments Mike had witnessed the immense pain and isolation that underlay the danger and power of the vampire, witnessed the terrible separation from humanity, as though he had been cast adrift, or cast aside. _

_Mike hadn't changed his mind about the observations he had made as he watched Fitzroy lose a portion of his famous control. Vicki had taken something from Henry, something that had kept him human, and the vampire mourned its loss. _

_Mike kept his silence, he didn't want to be the one to have to explain that to Vicki._

"I'll speak to Henry and ask him to keep his distance," she said in response, choosing not to confide that she had previously extracted a promise from Henry to keep away from Celluci.

"Don't do me any favors Vic," He muttered. "Look I gotta go; I have a ferry to catch to Victoria tomorrow morning. I'll call you if I hear anything more in regards to Gaelan. Have a good night."

"Yeah good night Mike," she had said absently. Years of partnering with Mike told her he was keeping something from her. _Let him have his little secret, she would figure it out soon enough._

***

Vicki brought her attention back to Linda who by now was literally squirming in her seat. She decided to give her a little prompt.

"Linda," she said softly, "tell me what it was you did that made Orion leave you."

Vicki was unprepared for the complete dissolution of the woman; her face seemed to cave in on itself as she began to sob. Her father leaned forward and put his hand on her knee, making an ineffectual sound best described as 'tut-tut.'

"You don't understand," Linda Gaelan wailed, "you just don't understand." Vicki moved around her desk so that she was directly in Linda's sightline. Coreen appeared at the door, with a box of tissues which she set on the desk top.

"Why don't you explain it to me then, Linda? Just start at the beginning, tell me in your own words," Vicki coaxed.

"You won't believe me, no one will," Linda sniffed loudly as she tried to control herself, and Coreen handed her a tissue, then resumed her place by the window.

"Try me," Vicki said, "you might be surprised what I can believe. From the beginning…"

Wayne Franklin looked at his daughter's tear stained face. "Go on _Lynee_, tell her," He said.

Vicki and Coreen listened attentively as Linda Gaelan spun out her story.

She had met Orion Gaelan in Lunenburg while she was attending a tall ship festival; for her it had been love at first sight. He was beautiful and mysterious and his brown eyes deep and dark and full of secret knowledge and compassion.

He made her feel safe and secure, seemed to take away her worries and gave her peace. She gave him her heart. They had loved. She had stayed on meeting with him night after night for two weeks and then finally moved into his small house.

When the moon sailed in the night sky almost at its full measure, Orion had told her mournfully that he needed to leave. She wept and pleaded but he was resolute. He said she could not go with him, though his eyes were haunted.

She had watched him sail out onboard the Lila from the harbor, and every evening she had gone to the beach to watch for his return.

One evening as the moon began to wax again, in her loneliness she had gone down to the shore, and clambered higher up on the rocks to watch the seals that cavorted in the breakers. As she watched she saw a sight that had shaken her heart.

A sleek grey seal pulled itself from the sea onto the rocks. Lifting its head it barked long and loud to the night. Its form shimmered briefly and suddenly where the seal had been, her Orion stood, his smooth muscled flesh glowing with the moonlight.

He reached down and bundled what appeared to be a seal's pelt, into a small roll. Moving aside a few rocks he exposed a small crevice from which he withdrew a waterproof cask. He removed some clothing from the cask and placed the seal skin inside. He hid the cask back inside the crevice, replacing the rocks, and then dressed himself quickly and had started off down the beach towards the town.

_Selchie_, she knew the word, _the legend that had sprung to life in the form of her own true love. _Moving as though she were in a dream she clambered down to the spot where Orion had secreted his skin and retrieved the cask. When she pried open the cask she expected to find a bloody and grotesque item. What she found was a silken soft pelt backed with what appeared to be silvery buttery soft leather. _Magic_, she had thought as she gathered up the skin in her arms and started for home.

As she had trudged through the soft sand she had thought long and hard, _if the legends were true, then as long as Orion did not have access to his skin, he would never be able to leave her and return to the sea._ Long before she reached her own door, she had secreted the skin away. _Tomorrow she would hide it more securely_.

As she had expected, Orion was waiting for her at home, and they had a joyous and loving reunion. She never told him that she knew what he was or that she had his skin. The following day she had sent Orion's skin to her father, who had placed the skin in a safety deposit box in her name.

When a month was gone Orion said he had to leave again, but that he would return to her soon. Linda waited alone at the window and when he came back to the house later that night, he was distraught and sorrowful. He would not tell Linda what was wrong.

And so, she had kept him by her for more than two years. In time Linda became pregnant. She was ecstatic, but Orion's eyes had grown shadowed. Linda miscarried again and again and she grew wild in her sorrow, until after the last miscarriage, as Orion attempted to comfort her, she had screamed, "It's your fault, you're not human. They die; they die because you are a selchie."

That was how Orion knew that Linda had his skin. He begged, he pleaded, he threatened and in the end…he endured. She was silent and she would not tell him where it was.

He had left her to travel on the tall ships and to get as close to the sea as he could. Over time they began to work on the seal rescue and environmental organizations together. Linda came to believe that Orion forgave her for stealing and keeping his skin. She never told him what he so desperately wanted to know but she finally began to relax when he had eventually stopped asking.

She had underestimated him. He had watched and waited and carefully gathered information. How he had done it she was not sure, but when he had first failed to call her as expected, she had gone to the safety deposit box. When she had seen that empty box, she had known that her selchie was gone.

"You kept him with you against his will?" Coreen asked incredulously after a moment. There was no question of belief in the existence of this legendary creature.

Linda looked over to her and shook her head sadly. "I loved him, but I knew, I just knew if he found his skin, he would go back to the sea."

"But he came back to you," Vicki said, "those first times, he came back."

Linda sighed and said, "I know, but I didn't trust that he would love me enough to stay."

Vicki startled as some secret place inside her heart resonated with Linda's words. "Please Ms. Nelson, you have to believe me, I just need to find him, to talk to him, to tell him how sorry I am, to tell him that I love him."

"Even if we find him, he may not want to see you, Linda. If I find him and he doesn't wish you to know his whereabouts...I will not tell you," Vicki said slowly. "The last places we have seen activity on his cards is in Vancouver and Victoria."

Linda sat forward eagerly, "He is most likely working as a photographer, or on a fishing boat, or ferry, something that puts him close to the water. Will you go, Ms. Nelson, will you go and try to find my selchie for me?"

Wayne Franklin spoke slowly from his chair. He looked directly into Vicki's face as the twilight edged into the room. "We did Orion a wrong Ms. Nelson, I know that now. I knew it when Lynee told me what he was and I hid his skin for her. I don't care what the cost is, and I'll cover all expenses for yourself and your assistant. Please, we just want a chance to make it right."

It was the most she had ever heard Wayne Franklin say.

Vicki thought for a moment and then said, "Fine, we will leave as soon as we can make the arrangements." She met both father and daughter's eyes. "It appears that your husband is involved with more than just hiding from you, as he is a 'person of interest' in an ongoing police investigation. I am warning you both. I will not allow you to trap the selchie again."

When the door had finally closed behind Linda Gaelan and her father, Coreen turned smiling to Vicki, her dark eyes dancing and her hands clasped in front of her chest. She was practically doing a little jig, in her delight.

"Vancouver," she crowed, "Vancouver, we are going to Vancouver." In her excitement she forgot herself and said, "We'll be able to see Henry while we're there, see his new place and how he's making out. I wonder if his new place is as cool as his old one. I bet he lives downtown or right on the water. I am sure that Augustus would have..."

"Coreen!" Vicki said loudly for the third time, holding up a hand, halting her in mid sentence. "Don't make me regret the decision to allow you to come. We have a case that requires us to travel to Vancouver. We aren't going there on a social trip."

"Yes, but it is a supernatural case," Coreen said slyly, "I can look up all kinds of information of the Selchie legends, errr...stories, um…histories, but you know that in Vancouver we will have one expert on the supernatural, who sleeps all day, drinks blood, and whose name begins with an H."

Vicki couldn't help but grin at Coreen's enthusiasm.

"All right, all right." Vicki held up her hands. "You spend some time looking into flights and accommodations. I'm going to look over the file one more time," Vicki said as she edged towards her office, before Coreen realized that she was the only person in the vicinity to hug.

By 10:00 PM their flights were booked for the day after tomorrow, their hotel in downtown Vancouver was arranged, and Coreen was clattering down the stairs on her way home to pack.

Vicky finally relaxed as she heard the street side door close behind her assistant and Coreen's key in the lock.

***

_What am I going to say to him,_ she thought, _that doesn't make it look like I am trailing out to Vancouver after him. That is just so pathetic. Yet isn't that exactly what I've wanted to do since that night? I keep imagining myself running after him and begging him to come back._

_What even makes you think he would want you around him or want to come back to Toronto? You can't cling to those tender words from months ago._

Even now she felt the tears prickle behind her eyes as she remembered his words.

_Vicki, My Vicki:_

_There, I have said what I never could say to your face. I want you, I need you, you are meant to be mine, body and soul. _

_Mine, as I am eternally yours. Hunger and silence fill a future that is endless and dark. You are life itself to me. _

_You are the joy of my heart. You have stolen my soul; it is in your keeping. _

_Your empty silence fills my night, fills the place where my heart once beat. You cannot keep me from loving you whether you will it or no. _

_Vicki, My Vicki. _

_I almost fell for that, _she thought. _If I had read it back then while he was still here in Toronto, I might have given in. Well I guess he got over it. Only took him a couple of months to get the idea. She remembered the very different tone of the last e-mail he had sent._

_Victoria:_

_I know that you will not answer this correspondence and that you may never read it. I have accepted the fact that you no longer wish any association with a creature such as myself. _

_In good conscience I cannot leave you unable to contact me. Honor demands that of me, in the event that you may require my assistance with Astaroth._

_It was an inexcusable error on my part to involve a human so deeply in my affairs and for this you have my apologies. I will endeavor not to repeat that same mistake in my new home._

_I have relocated into a new territory in the city of Vancouver. I have surrendered Toronto to another of my kind. She is far older than I. _

_I do not advise that you seek Morgana out. She does not suffer from the same weakness for human companionship that afflicts me. To her you would be nothing more than prey... H._

This was the e-mail that she had finally answered a few weeks ago.

_Now here I am, the little 'inexcusable error' that's going to show up at his door step._

_He's over you Nelson, get it through your thick skull_.

_All his pretty words and false promises didn't make any damn difference._

_He left you behind and moved on._


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 (No Title as yet)

Victoria Nelson was fuming. She was livid and _someone_ was going to pay. She sat with her hands spread flat on her desk top, her eyes narrowed as she reread the e-mail that marched across her screen.

She had been uncomfortable with breaking the news to Henry that she was going to be in Vancouver. When she had finally opened her e-mail she had found his message from the previous night. It made her angry, and she _did_ angry so much better than she _did_ uncomfortable.

Her fingers moved to the keys and she typed in a hurried line, then reread it and back spaced to delete the words. Her eyes travelled back down the screen.

He had sent this message at 3:00 AM Vancouver time, _probably right after he had 'dined' she thought_. That was 6:00AM for her. She had still been in bed, a prisoner to her dreams. _Dreams of Henry's hands and lips on…_

_That's what sh__e got for not checking her e-mail all day! _Now it was after 11:00PM and she knew that he would be rising soon. Though it was long ago dark in Toronto, she pictured the sun low on its crimson course to drown itself in the waters of the Pacific.

She reread his message again.

_Victoria,_

_One might assume that Detective Celluci has already apprised you of our meeting yesterday evening. I want to assure you that our encounter was entirely by chance. I happened across him in a local restaurant while I was 'prowling' the streets. _

_I must admit that contrary to your request, I am afraid that we did have some words._

_Despite what Celluci may have told you, please allow me to allay your fears in regards to the Detective's health. To paraphrase the children's tale, I didn't harm a hair on his chinney-chin-chin…_

_H_

She sat back in her seat_. Jeez! Henry let it go already…I'll never use the word 'prowling' again_, she thought. _I just asked him one little favor, just exhibit some self control and leave Mike alone to do his job, but could he do that? No. Why should, what a lowly little human wants matter to the Vampire Prince of Vancouver? Damn that Mike, he had already seen Henry when I talked to him yesterday night. He lied to me. And the Little Prince is only admitting to the meeting because he thinks that Celluci ratted him out! _

Henry:

Don't take that high and mighty tone with me. Do you expect me to believe that in a city the size of Vancouver, that you "_happened across_" Mike in a restaurant by chance? Let's just lay aside the question of what the hell you were doing in a restaurant in the first place; given your dietary restrictions I would have thought a back alley on Hastings more likely…

You promised you wouldn't bother him…

V

She hit send.

She was going to give Celluci a piece of her mind when she talked to him. What the hell was up with him anyway? How totally out of character that he hadn't taken the chance to let her know that Henry had contacted him. Usually he was the first in line to try to cause trouble for Henry.

The "new mail" message appeared in the corner of her screen. She read the single line response from Henry.

_Victoria: _

_Are you calling_ me a _LIAR?_

_H_

Vicki thought to herself that, _apparently the sun had set in Vancouver because the vampire was awake and…angry was he?_ She hit reply.

You tell me…Hank. Did you or did you not go out searching for Celluci and approach him after you promised that you would not?

Did you or did you not harm him or try to influence him in any way?

V

***

The "new mail" message appeared in the corner of his screen.

The vampire was furious; he stood in his living room-studio in just his boxers. The last lingering color of the drowned sun was still a deep red stain in the sky. In his anger and frustration his pale chest rose and fell at almost a human rate. He felt rumpled and worn even though he had risen but a few minutes before. _How did she reach out across the miles with such a true aim,_ he wondered? His ebony gaze dropped to her reply.

_You tell me…Hank. Did you or did you not go out searching for Celluci and approach him after you promised that you would not? _

_Did you or did you not harm him or try to influence him in any way?_

_V_

His eyes narrowed dangerously and he tasted his own blood where his fangs had run out and nicked his lower lip, as he read her words. He brought his knuckle to his chin and wiped at the trickle of crimson there. Then he absently brought the knuckle back to his mouth to suck the blood away. His lip had healed unnoticed.

_What had the human told her about their meeting?_ He knew that Celluci would have called her. He could just picture him crowing about Henry's lack of control in the restaurant. Telling her how Mike had had to save the _poor vampire_ from his own failings.

Henry's jaw clenched and he tightened his grip on the bottle of spring water he held forgotten in his hand. The bottle ruptured under the pressure of his fingers and his body and face were drenched with the resulting explosion of cool liquid.

"God's eyes!" he swore. He stood for a moment, the water dribbling down his skin to pool on his dark hardwood floor.

_What are you doing Fitzroy?_ He asked himself, after a blank moment, _what are you doing? Call her and explain to her what happened. _

And then…Henry only wanted to hear her voice. She wasn't _his._ He knew that. He had no claim on her. No claim on her heart.

The flickering letters on the screen couldn't bring her to him.

_Her voice, if I could only hear her voice, then I could quiet the part of me that is raging._

_If I could hear her heart beat, I could control the ravening hunger for her that threatens to unman me._

He stepped carefully over the spreading puddle on the floor and crossed through to his bedroom. The sounds of the city and the humans below drifted to his ears, borne on the everlasting breath of the sea. He picked up his cell and with his thumb pressed the button to dial her number. Then he lay back on the bed and raised his other arm up over his eyes as he held the phone to his ear. The fragrance of the orchids surrounded him as her phone began to ring.

****

The strains of "Reel de Joie" were revolving around and around through his head as Celluci made his rapid progress to the stern of the ferry. The wind was behind him now, buffeting against his broad back and setting his blond waves dancing about his face.

The sun sparkled and danced off the deep blue green of the water and he could glimpse far off from the stern the low indistinct bulk of the Gulf Islands. There was a small group of people at the stern railing pointing and laughing and waving excitedly to other passengers inside the windowed lounge behind him. Mike made his way to the railing and looked down to the water several stories below.

The water was white and roiling, disturbed behind the ferry from her forward motion. The folded and frothy wake of the ferry stretched back as far as his eyes could see. Below he could see just back from the stern the seals slipping and sliding through the water in pursuit of the ship. There were perhaps eight or ten seals in the group that shadowed the vessel. They dove and surfaced and chased each other joyously through the water.

The ferry was drawing closer to Vancouver Island now and the shores of the smaller out-islands rose off either side of the ferry. Darkly and densely treed, shadows lingered under the forest's eaves, but the rock outcroppings and the sand shingles were brilliantly lit by the warm noonday sun.

Behind him Mike heard the soft strains of a fiddle. He turned to see the platinum haired woman, alone this time, sitting and coaxing a low and quiet tune from her instrument. He turned back to the railing and the view of the islands as behind him the woman began to sing in a language he thought might be Gaelic.

His mind slowly let go of the need to understand the unfamiliar words. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the warmth of the sun as the wind whipped briskly about him. He could hear the barking and whistling of the seals from below and the haunting melody of the song behind. His mind slowly emptied of the ugly details of the crimes that brought him to this place and filled instead with a sense of peace and images of deep green water and sparkling sun, rocky ledges and schools of fish and smooth passage as if in flight through the water in pursuit, the warmth of the rough rocks and the ungainly roll of a body designed for water, hauled out in the warm sun, on the beach…

The ferry reversed her engines loudly, shuddering as she began to slow in her approach to the dock.

Broken from his daydream, Mike blinked as he opened his eyes to the last strains of the woman's song. When he looked at her she smiled shyly at him. The world of other passengers and his everyday life re-established itself as he was released from the enchantment of her spell.

The announcement crackled on the air and the last bit of magic shredded on the breeze.

"We are nearing Swartz Bay terminal, would all drivers return to the vehicle deck in preparation for offloading."

***

When he had trouped down the stairs, his blond head rising above most of the crowd and his long legs adopting a shorted gait more in keeping with the rest of the passengers, he found his car. After stowing his attaché case in the trunk, Mike opted to stand by the opening at the front of the car deck watching the ferry close in on the dock. The water was shallower here but still the dark trees marched down to the shore, with the exception of the acres occupied with the modern structures and the smooth asphalt of the terminal buildings.

To one side there was a large crowd of people waiting to disembark the ferry. Mike remembered hearing the announcement warning the "foot passengers," which he assumed were people crossing without their vehicles_,_ that they would be disembarking from the upper vehicle deck.

Mike noted that two or three of the group of musicians he had seen earlier were standing in the waiting crowd. His attention was drawn to a melodic humming. He watched the brown haired concertina player, rocking back and forth heel to toe, eyes downcast, humming the tune. Feeling his gaze on her she glanced up and when her brown eyes met his, Mike felt a smile spread slowly over his face.

Her liquid brown gaze met his squarely and she smiled in return, the light of curiosity entering her eyes.

"Did you get a chance to see the seals?" Mike asked her. At the puzzled frown that appeared on her brow, he continued, "You know…uhh…there were some at the back…stern of the boat…in the…water," he lifted his hand to his chin and raised one eyebrow as he stumbled to a halt under the amused warmth of her eyes.

"Ah," she said, nodding her head as if it all made perfect sense, "you can oft times see the grey seals around the shore."

Her speaking voice was as melodic as her singing voice, assured and calm and just a hint of a lilt that Mike couldn't quite place.

"Well, I can tell you, you would never see any seals following a boat in the Toronto harbor or in Lake Ontario," Mike said with a crooked grin as he stepped a little closer.

"And is that where you are from then Mr…?" her smile traveled to her eyes.

"Celluci…Michael, please call me Michael," he answered nodding. "Yes, I'm…" he paused momentarily before saying, "visiting from Toronto."

"Michael…_the Defender,"_ she said as she transferred the handle of her case to one hand and put out her other.

When Mike took her small warm hand in his, he couldn't say exactly what it was he felt, a kind of a calming sense that all would be well seemed to overcome him.

"My name is Liath, Michael…Liath Roane. I am very pleased to meet you," she said as she clasped his larger hand in a surprisingly firm grip.

Mike retained his grip on her hand just a second or two longer than was completely necessary,as he looked into her smiling eyes. _He wondered what it would be like to walk..._

Her laugh was musical and lyric and he felt himself drawn back into the moment and he forced himself to release her hand. In this close proximity she had to tilt her head back to look into his face.

"Did you enjoy watching the seals Michael?" she asked, her head canted to the side and her thick braid slipped over her shoulder to rest against her chest.

Mike called the image of the seals to his mind's eye. "Yes," he responded slowly, "I did like them. The way they slipped so smoothly and lithely through the transparent green water, dancing and playing in the wake from the ferry, chasing each other, like they didn't have a care in the world. It was almost…"

He sputtered to a stop suddenly embarrassed as his words, but Liath finished for him.

"Almost magical?" she asked with a grin.

"Beautiful," he finally said. Then before he could allow embarrassment to silence him he continued, "Beautiful like your voice and your playing, I've never heard anything quite like it."

"Well thank you, Michael," she said. Her cheeks flushed a little with her pleasure. "We will be playing a gig at the Victoria Folk Club, tomorrow night, we'll be the feature. You could come and see us there, if you like. Or I'll be doing a bit of busking down at the inner harbor as well, tomorrow during the day, perhaps I'll see you there," she said

The ferry shuddered as the captain reversed her engines in full to bring her gently to dock.

"I should probably get to my car," Mike said, though he made no move to leave. He stood with his hands thrust into his trench coat pockets, smiling down at her.

She nodded her head, and when he didn't move away she said, "You probably should."

"Mmmmm…I don't suppose you need a ride into town or…" he managed to pull his scattered wits together. In the background he could hear car doors opening and closing and even a few engines roaring to life.

"Oh no I don't, I have a friend who is coming to pick me up at the dock. But thank you for the offer."

"Would that be your boyfriend or your fiancé?" he asked. _Oh my God, I can't believe I just asked that,_ he thought.

Liath laughed aloud at the distressed look on Michael's face, but there was no mockery in her laughter, and after a moment Mike smiled ruefully. "No," she said, "not my boyfriend or fiancé."

The line of foot passengers began to gather their bags and bundles as the gate slid open and the first of the cars began to roll forward to the ramp.

"Michael, you must go," she jerked her head towards the cars.

"Yeah, I…I'll see you soon…Liath," Mike said as he turned away to hurry to his car.

She just smiled a gentle smile and raised her hand.


	13. Chapter 13

Vicki eyed the phone as it rang. _She wasn't going to answer, she wasn't going to answer. Let his Royal Highness stew a little bit. He only wanted to yell at her for wounding his precious pride, after all. He'd be all self righteously affronted that she dared to question his statement. Or worse yet, play the part of the poor wounded and misunderstood creature of the night._

_What, the poor little Prince couldn't stand his motives to be questioned? Well she was damned if she was going to let him get her on the phone and use that sweet sexy voice of his to get around her. _

_I'm not going to watch every word I say for fear of offending his delicate sensibilities. I am who I am and I am not changing that for anyone. He can take it or…leave it. _

The phone continued to ring, and she counted the seconds between each of the rings, small silences, that seemed to stretch out longer and longer as she waited hands clenched for the ringing to stop. When the phone finally went quiet, the silence in the office was so thick that Vicki felt like she couldn't draw in enough air.

A painful sense of abandonment swelled up inside her chest, and she clamped down on it unmercifully, shaking her head and flattening her lips. _He left me behind, He left me behind,_ her internal voice wailed, _and he wouldn't wait for me. I just needed a little time, to take care of…to take care of…_

She reached for anger's comforting warmth to push away the soul freezing sense of insecurity and unworthiness that chilled her heart.

_Well, I'll be damned if I am going to tell him that I'll be in Vancouver now. I can just imagine that self confident and knowing smile. I know he will be thinking, "Just another conquest, come crawling back to me begging for my attentions." _

_I'll just go to Vancouver, find out what I can on Gaelan and then get out of his territory just as quickly as I can._

***

Henry lay with his arm over his eyes, listening to the short silences between the ring tones of her phone.

He already knew that she would not answer. He knew that those small intervals of silence would expand to a longer period of silence that would once again threaten to swallow the night.

When he heard the pause that indicated he was going to her voicemail, he gently closed the phone and placed it on the bedside table.

He was being punished; he knew that, for some infraction of the "Nightwalker Code of Conduct" as written by Victoria Nelson. She would punish him with her silence once again.

Almost five hundred years ago he had made a choice that had altered what he was. He had traded his life for what he thought was love and had been made a Vampire. He could not undo that choice.

She could not truly accept him for what he was, he knew that. She feared his unchanging nature, and though she outwardly accepted him, even cared for him, she feared the passion of his spirit.

She sought the shelter of her silence.

A painful sense of abandonment swelled up in his chest; with a low growl he embraced it.

_She doesn't understand what it is to be Vampire,_ he thought. _To be made to stand amid the raging torrent of humanity and human history and watch it flow past you. You are the boulder in the midst of the stream. The water divides, flows around you and rushes onwards in its course, leaving you behind, abandoned_.

_Her life rushes on, so brief, so quickly gone. I might have her with me for a few decades and then she will be borne away in that rushing stream. The time is so short. She will not give me what I desire; she will only give me the silence of her absence._

The hunger, for the blood of his prey, budded inside his body. He would hunt this night, bathing the wound on his heart in blood. He would bring them to himself, compelling them to surrender that which was HIS!

He would hunt this night, and in the passion of the hunt he could put away the soul freezing sense of insecurity and unworthiness that chilled his heart.

***

The elevator doors opened with the hiss of the hydraulics, and Henry emerged through them into the lobby.

He was actively hunting, with a hunger that he willingly inflamed, a hunger which he was capable of satisfying. His face was resolute and his eyes narrowed in the coarse artificial light as the scent of the human seated behind the desk reached him. He strode across the brightly lit space, questioning himself.

_Was this one suitable prey? _The guard was seated with her back to him, and her nose in a magazine_. No, too easy. I could feed and be back alone in my apartment within twenty minutes. Where is the challenge in that?_

He approached the desk and the human looked up. He saw it, he saw the fear flitter across her eyes and he schooled his face. At the sight of her fear he reconsidered for a moment his decision. He put the slightest power in his voice as he suggested that she had seen nothing in his appearance to alarm her.

Tanya nodded amiably under his influence. Leaning over the desk he reached out a finger and lifted her chin, stretching out her throat. He considered the tracery of glowing sustenance that lay just below the surface, his eyes dark and brooding. There was no fear in the human's blank gaze.

_Perhaps…_

Abruptly he leaned back and then whispered, "Go back to your magazine…Tanya. You haven't seen me this evening." He turned and stalked towards the door and the waiting night.

***

Marc grabbed Evelyn's hand as they exited the Teahouse Restaurant into the cool fragrant darkness of the Stanley Park. _For a second date this had gone really well,_ he thought. She was beautiful, charming and witty, everything he liked in a companion, and her physical attributes were far more than he had expected when Susan had set them up.

She smiled at him and allowed him to link his fingers with hers as they walked across the parking lot towards the stairs to the seawall.

She was so glad that, when she was returning from the ladies room, the handsome young man with the long hair had suggested that she and her date might enjoy a walk on the seawall. Once he had said it, in that smooth as silk voice, she couldn't wait to feel the cool night air on her skin.

Marc had given in easily to her request, that they take a slow walk along the water in the dark, and perhaps sit in one of the benches and look out to the city lights. They passed their car and out of the lights of the parking lot. She drew her sweater a little higher on her shoulders as the night's breath was cool.

Hand in hand they descended the steps to the seawall walk, just a few feet above the rocks of the shore. The water lapped quietly against the wall, as the tide was high. They strolled slowly along the walk, enjoying the night and the light of the moon illuminating the way. Up the forested hill to their left the occasional car would pass by on Park Drive, the headlights flashing amid the silent tree trunks.

The voice that emerged from the dark was impossible to resist. A single word had them stopped still hand in hand on the walk. A moment later, Marc was drawing Evelyn through the trees, until they came to a small space in the brush. Here the voice bid them stay. They stood side by side, their eyes wide and frightened as a figure emerged from between the trees.

Their scent was full of fear and as Henry approached, their hearts began to pound. He tested his compulsion over them as he circled them where they stood. He moved closer to the female, and dropping his face to the hollow of her throat, he drew in a long breath. Her scent was ripe with her fear. It called to him.

He could feel the male struggling in his grasp and strengthened his compulsion. He ran his cool fingers down their arms to where their hands were clasped.

At his instructions the humans separated to stand a short distance apart.

He turned first to the female, her scent the most provocative, full of fear. Her lips quivered but once he had caught her gaze she could not look away. He circled her once more allowing her to follow him with her eyes. Once he was in front of her again he lifted a hand to push aside the edges of her sweater, easing the sleeves down her arms until her shoulders and chest were bare under her low cut dress.

He heard a low groan emerge from the male and cast a glance over his shoulder commanding him, "Silence."

He turned his attention back to the female, trailing cool fingers along her clavicle, the flesh of her arms and chest pebbling with gooseflesh in response. He cast aside the masquerade and allowed his eyes to darken and his fangs to drop. As he brought his lips to her mouth he breathed, "Do you know what I am?"

Against his own lips, he felt the tip of her tongue extend to moisten her upper lip and then she sucked her lower lip under her teeth in trepidation.

"Yes," she sighed in response. He turned his head to the side and nuzzled close to her ear, reveling in the sound of her heart's frantic beating and the pulse of her blood just beneath her glowing skin.

"Tell me," he whispered as he tasted the salt of her skin at her throat.

"Vampire, you are a vampire," she said slowly. Henry nodded his affirmation silently against her throat.

He turned her by the shoulders until as she faced him, her back was to the male. His eyes were black as he uttered the command, "Watch."

Marc could not look away as the vampire eased his fangs into Evelyn's flesh, at the point where her neck and shoulder met. She didn't move or cry out and Marc could see no blood, as the vampire locked his lips tightly to her flesh.

When he began to drink, Marc saw the vampire close his eyes, in pleasure. Released from the black gaze, Marc could not move, but his mind was free to observe the scene unfold in front of him. He watched as after a moment Evelyn brought her arms up to encircle the vampire's neck.

Instead of struggling to free herself, she pushed her body up against him, rubbing herself against his thigh as the vampire lowered his hands to grasp her waist. She tightened her grasp arching her back and throwing back her head and she gasped aloud as her orgasm took her. The vampire opened his eyes and caught Marc's gaze as he withdrew his fangs. He turned to Evelyn and pushed her hair back from her face with an almost tender gesture. "Wait," he commanded as he stepped away from her side.

***

_I made her tell me the name of her fear, Vampire, the thing that I am._

The female was fearful up until the point that his fangs pierced her skin; as soon as he was physically linked to her the fear had melted away.

Now as he turned to the male a new scent of fear assaulted his senses and the hunger rose in answer. The vampire made no attempt to shield his prey from his truth. When he stood in front of the male, he lifted his compulsion slightly and he saw defiance and hatred bleed into the human's eyes. He allowed the male to struggle in his grasp for a moment and then phrased the same question displaying his fangs and watching his prey with obsidian eyes.

"Do you know what I am?" he asked again. The tone of his question was almost plaintive.

"You, you're a monster, a nightmare come to life, you're a fucking vampire. Christ! What do you want?" Mark sputtered.

"I want, I want..." his voice trailed off and the vampire glanced down and then back to the human's wide and frightened eyes.

"I want you to feed me."

"Fuck you," the male ground out as he struggled in Henry's control.

"Mmmmm…Perhaps another time."

The vampire smiled and then sharply tightened his control and the hunger was inflamed by the increase in the scent of the male's fear.

He strengthened his compulsion as the male fought his control. Marc's eyes widened in terror as against his own will he raised his arm towards the waiting vampire.

"Bare your wrist," Henry whispered, his eyes on the human's face.

Marc's opposite hand came up, fumbled with his cuff button and then pushed his suit jacket and shirt sleeve back to his elbow. The vampire waited, bathed in the scent of the human's terror, hatred and arousal. Stimulated, his hunger rose again in response to the intoxicating combination.

The vampire moved a pace forward as Marc held out his arm, palm up.

Marc watched as the vampire stepped closer. He wanted to look at Evelyn to see if she was all right, but he couldn't turn his eyes away from the dark gaze of the monster that approached him.

_Is this a nightmare?_ he asked himself. _This must be a nightmare. Fuck! I can't help myself, why am I offering my arm to him, just put it down. Just put it...His fingers are warm now, Uhhh… _

Marc watched as the vampire took his proffered wrist in one hand. Marc slowly clenched his fist in the vampire's grasp but this only had the effect of causing the branching veins to stand proud of his skin. The Vampire circled a smooth thumb around and around over the blue veins that pulsed at the human's wrist.

_Jesus Christ_, he thought _he's going to bite me. Those fucking fangs are huge, no!_

Marc felt the warmth of the vampire's tongue on his skin and then a sharp pain at his wrist. As the vampire began to feed, Marc watched the ebony eyes grow softer and the lids slowly drop over their moist surface. Marc felt his sex tighten with the stirrings of arousal and then he was flooded with a sense of pure pleasure so intense that within a few moments he felt himself slip over the edge of the abyss of his release. His own eyes had tightly closed and when he opened them with a sigh, he saw the midnight gaze of the vampire watching him over his own flesh. Where a moment before he had been ecstatic in his pleasure, now, he shuddered under the depth of loneliness and despair that he glimpsed in those black depths. The weight of that endless agony brought tears starting in his eyes.

The vampire withdrew his fangs, incongruously laving the site of his bite tenderly with his tongue.

As he stood back, Marc heard the whispered question, "Tears for the monster?"

***

They strolled slowly along the walk, the light of the moon illuminating the way. Up the forested hill to their left the occasional car would pass by on Park Drive, the headlights flashing amid the silent tree trunks.

Marc turned to Evelyn, drawing her slightly closer, and lifting his arm around her shoulder. He was oblivious to the four small puncture wounds visible at the neck edge of her sweater. "Would you like to sit for a while on this bench and watch the night?"

She smiled and lay her head on his shoulder, "Yes, yes I'd like that."

***

The brilliant lights of the lobby pained his eyes even though he had squinted them nearly shut, in an effort to shield them. The door of the building had not swung closed before he was across the space and pushing the elevator button. The scent of the cool night air flowed by in his wake.

"You have not seen me this evening," he said over his shoulder in a commanding tone, as Tanya lifted her head. She had settled back in her seat as the elevator doors slid open with a sigh to admit him to the dark paneled cubicle.

As the doors whispered closed he leaned his forehead against the wood above the buttons to collect himself for a moment, then reached down and pressed the button for the top floor. He paced in a tight circle in the close confines as the elevator began its ascent.

_I cannot remember the last time I fed that way, treating my innocent prey so_, he thought. _I toyed with them, taking as much pleasure from their fear as from the sustenance they provided._

_It is something that a newborn would do, glorying in one's power over the helpless. _

_And in the end the human male shamed me into recognizing my folly._

As the door swung open at his floor Henry crossed quickly through the atrium to his own door, and a moment later stood inside his apartment. The night was clear and beautiful and as he crossed the room to drop his keys on the console, his eyes were drawn to the lights of his city.

He glanced toward the door of his inner sanctum, but he knew that it was hours until dawn. Restless, he started towards his work table, but paused partway there. His hands dropped to his sides. He knew that all his Muses had flown; he was unfit company this evening.

In the end he took the spiral stair to the roof, pacing the perimeter of his garden around and around until finally he forced himself to sit on an antique stone bench under an arbor overgrown with moonflower vine.

He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned over to cover his face with his hands. He knew he felt warm and alive from the blood he had taken. He stared down at the graveled path at his feet, seeing nothing but the dawning horror and compassion that had filled his prey's eyes at the last unguarded moment they were linked.

He drew in a long breath and the fragrance of the white blooms surrounded him. He raised a gentle finger to touch the satin white of the petals.

He had often watched in wonder as the furled blooms of the moonflower unfolded gracefully under the lunar radiance in less than a minute, adapted to the night, forever separated from its cousin the morning glory.

Henry returned to his apartment and picking up the remote, closed the metal shades. He crossed to his sanctum and closed and secured the doors. Again he picked up the remote and as he settled on the edge of the bed he pressed the button, watching with unfocussed eyes as the shades lowered to block off the night sky and the city below.

Slipping off his boots, he lay himself fully clothed on top of the bed. Turning on his side he pulled the pillow to him and curled his body around it. The dawn was still more than an hour distant. This night, the vampire composed himself to wait, for the thoughtless and painless oblivion of the dawn.


	14. Chapter 14

The traffic moved slowly, bumper to bumper along the Pat Bay Highway as the cars exited the Ferry dock.

Mike had been treated to the irate stares of those drivers who had had to pull around his abandoned car as he had rushed back to it.

Nothing said _stranger_ to a Vancouver Island resident like someone who had the poor manners to hold up the ferry traffic. Once he had offloaded the boat and was in among the other traffic he had finally felt the heated blush fade from the back of his neck.

The open countryside around him rolled up and down gentle grades and looking off to his right, a few miles away across the sloping farmer's fields, he could see the expanse of ocean water, blue and sparkling.

The ferry traffic had been stop and start at first, but now as they moved farther from the dock, it was thinning out, the cars spacing themselves out like beads on a necklace to the point that Mike could pick up some speed between the stop lights.

He could see three young women in the car in front of him. The front windows were down and the hair of the driver was whipping about her head. From behind Mike could see that they were laughing and gesturing in animated conversation.

Ahead the traffic was slowing and as he pulled to a stop he could read the bumper stickers on the women's car. "Gill Nets are Death Traps for Marine Mammals!" declared the one on the right while the one on the left proclaimed, "When Words Fail, Music Speaks!"

As he raised his eyes from the bumper the woman in the back seat turned to look back and regarded him with deep brown eyes. Liath smiled as she recognized Mike and raised her hand slightly in greeting.

The traffic began to move again as the involuntary, wide smile crept across Mike's face. She did not bring the attention of her friends to him; she simply turned her body slightly, regarding him as he drove behind them. Finally, Mike saw one of the women in the front seat turn to speak to her, and Liath turned to face the front. He saw her shake her head, and then the woman in the front turned to face forward again. A moment later they turned into a right hand turn lane.

As Mike pulled up beside them, the blond driver smiled appreciatively at him. He looked down slightly abashed at her forthright admiration and when he looked back it was to see Liath's wave as the car drove off down the side road.

Mike regretfully followed along with the stream of traffic and in time found himself driving along Douglas Street towards downtown Victoria. He eventually pulled into the parking lot of the RCMP Building on Nanaimo Street.

Mike had worked with the Mounties on many occasions in the past, and whether in Ontario or in British Columbia, the protocols were the same. After the first few awkward moments of formality, he was accepted by the detectives working the case and spent the next two hours being briefed in the ongoing investigations into the three Vancouver drowning executions.

He was then shown to an empty meeting room and presented with several very thick dossiers on the local activist groups, who were known to have crossed paths with the identified organized crime and gang leaders in the city.

Four hours, and hundreds of photocopies later, he had assembled his own bulging file. He had a number of addresses that he wanted to check out tomorrow.

Sighing, he closed the file folder and laid it on top of his much abused attaché case. _There is no way in hell I am going to be able to fit that in there,_ he thought.

He raised his arms over his head and stretched out the cramped muscles of his shoulders, groaning in pleasure at the slight burning as the tension was eased.

_Man, I need a workout,_ he thought as he rolled his shoulders. He picked up his discarded tie and stuffed it in the pocket of his coat where it hung on the chair back. Mike glanced around the room; he was done for today.

He gathered up the Styrofoam coffee cups and the balled up cellophane from the long gone turkey and cheese sandwich, tossing them in the trash as he grabbed his coat. He picked up his attaché and stuck the new file under his arm.

The sergeant at the front desk had directed him to the Super Eight Motel just around the corner, and said that the reservation was made in his name.

With a backwards wave of his hand Mike pushed through the front doors of the station and was on his way to his car. The sky was a pale shade of grey with low dark clouds broken and under lit in the rose colored wash of the sunset. The air smelled like there may be rain on the way. It was just after eight in the evening and given the way his stomach was growling, he needed to find himself something to eat.

He checked into the motel and hauled his suitcase and attaché up to his second floor room,_ straight forward motel room: chair, table, TV and a king-sized bed._ With a sigh Mike slipped off his shoes then eased off his jacket and tossed it over the chair back. He worked the buttons of his shirt undone and that followed the jacket, then his pants and socks. Running a tired hand through his hair he crossed to the bathroom.

He flipped on the light, squinting a little in the brightness and looked thoughtfully at the stack of white towels and the shower._ I could just have a hot shower and hit the sack,_ he thought, but in the end opted for turning on the hot water in the sink and dousing his face and neck.

Toweling dry he redressed in his running sweats, and dropped to do a few stretches, having decided to think through what he had read this afternoon by pounding the pavement.

He jogged out to Douglas Street and turned towards downtown. It had become dark but the streetlights of the city cast enough light for sure footed running.

Mike was just hitting his stride and was turning over the places he wanted to visit tomorrow in his mind; _top of the hit list was the Victoria Aquatic Mammal Protection Society. _They had a small office in Oak Bay close to the Marina. The files said they had a large membership both inside and outside the province.

_I have to admire how passionate they are in their beliefs, _Mike thought to himself,_ even if I don't necessarily agree with their actions. I am just too law and order to be really comfortable with civil disobedience I guess. _The 'Society' was a well-known and well-publicized protester of the spring seal hunt on the ice of the East Coast.

They were also outspoken advocates of endangered or protected species rights_._ They were almost zealots in Mike's mind. One of their beliefs was that it was their personal responsibility to interfere with, or prevent the trade in, endangered species and the byproducts of those species.

_Well there is at least one exotic species that I have run across that I wouldn't mind knowing was extinct_, Mike thought, though after his last meeting with Fitzroy he found it hard to raise the usual anger he felt at the thought of the vampire.

_I wonder if there is a resident bloodsucker in Victoria, I mean aside from those at the Parliament and at City Hall._ Once he got the thought in his mind he couldn't seem to let it go. _Fitzroy had said that most cities had a resident ruler, so, it made sense that if Fang Boy had Vancouver, then some other creepy crawly had Victoria. Well whoever the "resident" is they would have to keep a low profile in a tourist town like this one._

He was running through downtown now and had almost decided to turn and start back to the hotel. There were a few groups of people on the street and he slowed as he passed by a pub.

The doors were open and the sound of live music underscored by the hum of conversation that spilled out into the night. The sign over the door read The Irish Times. The pub was crowded and Mike could see through the windows a small stage was set up and there was a group of three musicians playing. Two fiddles and a mandolin poured out the rapid notes of a dizzying reel and the patrons feet stomped out the rhythm.

A quick glance told Mike that none of the musicians was the one he was hoping to see. Liath was not in attendance that night.

Mike crossed the street and began to run back in the direction of the hotel. All thoughts of the case and vampire politics and politicians in general, had somehow suddenly vanished from his mind. Instead he found himself replaying his conversation with Liath this afternoon on the car deck of the ferry, in all of its excruciating detail.

He pictured her charming smile and her comfortable laugh. He heard again the barely there lilt of her speech and the mellow confidence of her voice. Mostly he considered the brown velvet of her eyes, deep and dark, swift and clever; full of some secret understanding that Mike wanted to know more about.

Tomorrow evening, he would find out where she was playing and he would make sure to be seated in the audience.

He pounded up the steps of the motel and pulled out his key. Maybe he would order in some pizza, shower and spend an hour or two on the file.

***

Clare looked up from the ironing board that she had set up in the small living room. The smell of hot cotton and steam, a homey and yet somehow productively satisfying scent. She was probably the only person she knew who loved to iron. The dampened and rolled blouses and tops sat in a row in the basket waiting for her tender attentions, something about the way the wrinkles smoothed out to a flat surface under the hiss of the steam…. Liath passed by her peripheral vision again and Clare finally asked, "Liath, what's wrong, you are so restless tonight, it's like you can't sit still."

Liath smiled a little ruefully at her sometimes housemate, "I'm sorry Clare, am I bothering you? I know that you're not used to having me around."

"Don't be silly Liath, you're not bothering me, and this is your home too. You were only away for a week this time. Sometimes when it's much longer, then, to be fair, I do get a little used to my own company, but I am always, always, glad when you come back. Is there something wrong?" Clare asked, a little frown puckering her brow.

Liath flung herself down into the low upholstered chair. Anyone who knew her usual smooth and elegant grace would have spotted how out of character that single abrupt movement actually was.

Silently, Clare raised a brow, waiting.

"Yes, well no…not really. I don't know. I just can't seem to settle," Liath sighed and twisted the end of her brown plait in her hand.

"Perhaps the dinner upset you," Clare wondered aloud.

"No, not the dinner; you know that your salmon is my favorite Clare, it was delicious," Liath said. "I just feel so…restless; I think I will go for a walk."

"Maybe that will help," Clare said as she picked up the iron again. "I am sure it's going to rain tomorrow though so it might be cool out on Dallas Road tonight."

Liath smiled, "Do you know what the definition of a sweater is?" she asked Clare.

Clare just raised an eyebrow again inquiringly.

"It's a garment that children wear, when their mother feels cold, Liath finished, dodging gracefully to avoid the rolled blouse that Clare had thrown at her.

Laughing, Liath returned to her room and retrieved her boots and her jacket. When she got to the door she called over her shoulder, "I may walk downtown to the Irish Times, Clare. I have my keys, don't wait up."

"Be careful, dear one," was Clare's response.

The moon had risen in the sky and was riding high above the incoming clouds. Liath sniffed the air. The rain was coming, if not tomorrow then tomorrow night.

She twitched her braid free from where it was trapped beneath her coat and made her way through the front gate of the small Fairfield house.

Three block out to Dallas Road, when she stood facing the water she looked to the right. _I can walk that way and up Cook Street then across Fairfield Road downtown to the Irish Times and catch the last couple of Rene's sets,_ she thought.

She looked to the left at the long, lamp lit stretch of Dallas Road that headed down past Clover Point towards the Ross Bay Cemetery and then on into Oak Bay.

_Or I can walk down Dallas to Clover Point and out to take a look at the water._

The thought of the water rushing up against the rocks in the moonlight decided her. She turned to the left and started off down Dallas. Twenty minutes later she was making her way across the flat grassy field of Clover Point.

She passed the sole lamppost at the far end of the Point and then by the light of the moon reflected off the ocean beyond, she clambered down the boulders to where the high tide brushed the rocky log strewn breakwater.

Perching just above the waterline on a smooth, water worn log she watched the moonlight shimmer across the ocean's surface. With her arms wrapped about her knees she became still. She allowed herself to open to the night and the sky.

She sat so for at least an hour emptying the thoughts of the day from her mind, until only one smiling and embarrassed face remained.

_Michael, _she thought to herself, _named for the Defender. Tall and honest, _she thought,_ most likely "law enforcement" though he had said nothing to that effect. Not her "usual," a wee bit too mainstream, but…but there was something in his eyes that spoke to her._

She pictured his face and his stance, hands thrust into his pockets. She found that she was humming a little song as she sat alone on the point in the dark. Suddenly she laughed aloud and shook her head._ Why you fool, _she said to herself_, that's "The Barking Seal." I haven't played that for years._

Liath swiveled her head around to inspect the point. There was no one about; it was after eleven.

Across the grass and up at the top of the rise she could see the lights of the houses on Dallas Road, some were already dark. No one would know.

She slowly unbraided her hair until it flowed loose in the breeze and then unzipped her coat and spread it out on the log. She pulled her sweater over her head and her T-shirt followed. When she was naked, she bundled all her clothes in her coat and forced the bundle in between two rocks. Her body glowed pale and ripe in the moon's chill light.

She waded into the water until it was up to her waist; she knew full well that the drop off to the deeper water was only a few feet out.

Legend said that a selchie needed to 'have' its skin to return to the sea.

This was not precisely correct. A selchie need only know the exact location of their skin and to be able visualize it in that location, in order to change form.

If a selchie's skin was stolen, as sometimes did happen, _her kinsman Orion was a sad case in point_, then they were indeed forced to remain in human form until they had reclaimed their skin.

_It had taken her almost a month to coax Orion back into human form and to convince him it was safe to secret his skin._

Liath pictured her skin now, as she stood in the cold water. Soft and silver grey, marked with darker spots, warm and supple, safe in its hiding place.

She felt the up rush of the magic in the same way that the sea rushes to the shore. Her lips bowed in a small smile and her eyes darkened to a solid rich brown. Her pale form wavered in the moonlight for one fluid moment and then with a roll of her body and a thrust of her flippers, she launched herself through the dark water flying out into the strait.

***

Mike swiped the steam from the mirror with a pass of his wet palm; in the close hot confines of the bathroom his reflection began to blur again almost immediately. His blue eyes regarded him, as he pushed his wet waves back out of his face. He picked up his watch from the back of the tank. _Almost midnight, that made it nearly three in Toronto, too late to call Vicki now._

He had missed her call when he was paying the pizza delivery guy at the door of his room. He told himself he would call her back after he had eaten. Then it was, _well no sense in calling until I have had a second look at the file_, and then,_ I'll call as soon as I am out of the shower._

_I 'm sure that she is calling because Captain Canine told her about how we met up in the restaurant. She will have figured out by now that I lied about that, and Vicki that angry, shit, that is something I don't really need tonight. I just can't fend off any of her pressing questions right now, I don't want to have to fucking explain HOW Henry is…I am not sure I can explain. I'll call her tomorrow morning; she is usually in a "better" mood after a few hours sleep._

Ten minutes later Mike, clad in his sleep pants, lay between the impersonal crisp motel sheets and reaching a muscled arm across to the bedside lamp, turned the switch, consigning himself to the dark.


	15. Chapter 15

_The bottom flowed by beneath, smooth and ever closer as the water became shallower. _

_Twisting and turning in flight, the grey light of the surface appeared and disappeared with each roll that was orchestrated by a powerful maneuver of the flippers. The glitter of silver as a small school of fish flickered by and then the chase was on. _

_The cluster of silver bodies scattered and wove, disappearing, into the waving strands of kelp. Powerful thrusts of the hind flippers pushed the sleek form into the kelp forest, the long fronds caressing the spotted coat in passage. _

_Just ahead a flash of silver, jaws opened as the distance closed…_

The jangling voice of the phone woke Mike with a start. He put one hand to his head to try to find his bearings even as his other arm reached out to make an ineffectual grab for the receiver. He succeeded only in knocking the handset to the floor and then spent a couple of frustrating seconds trying to reel it in by the coiled cord.

"Hello?" he croaked when he finally held it to his mouth, the images of the dream still vivid in the front of his consciousness.

"Good Morning Sir, eight o'clock wake-up call," the too chipper male voice said on the other end of the line.

"What? Oh, yeah. Th-thanks," Mike said, dropping the phone back on the receiver. He rolled over onto his back and with a loud exhalation he flopped his arms out at his sides.

The dream was fading now, though if he closed his eyes he could still feel the sense of powerful exhilaration of those rolls through the water and the silver grey of the dawn air above….

Mike scrubbed a hand over his face and then sat up, swinging his legs out of the bed. He crossed to the sun blocking curtains and opened one corner to view with blinking eyes the high cloud of a hazy grey sky.

Victoria was awake and there were the sounds of traffic going by on the street and he could see a couple of cars pulling out of the hotel parking lot.

_Seeing those seals behind the ferry yesterday really made an impression on me I guess,_ he thought, as dropping the curtain he made his way to the bathroom.

***

_I am not really sure how the guys that work undercover do it,_ he thought. _I purposefully dressed casual today, what is it about me that says COP? No one knows me in this town and yet hadn't the waitress at the Denny's just asked me, "More coffee, officer?"_

More than his authoritative demeanor and direct and competent approach, there was something in Michael Celluci's eyes which gave him away as law enforcement. Some intimate desire to protect the weak, some need to bring order to chaos.

He picked up the check and carried it to the front cash register. It was almost 10 A.M. now; he was going to head back to the RCMP station for a joint meeting with the local P.D. and then following that he would head over to Oak Bay and the Victoria Aquatic Mammal Protection Society offices. He was confident that there would be someone there by then.

***

Mike pulled down past Beacon Hill Park and the turned left on to Dallas Road. He glanced down at the tourist map of Victoria spread out on the seat beside him. He just had to follow Dallas Road across a ways and then head into Oak Bay.

As he drove along Dallas, there was a flat grassy area to his right spotted with yellow blooming broom bushes; their sharp scent hung in the moist air. Then there was a small paved footpath, on which joggers and walkers moved back and forth with an impressive regularity.

Beyond the footpath the grass ended abruptly in a steep downward slope to the rocky, log strewn beach below. In some places the slope was eroded away to a cliff face.

Dallas Road sloped gently downwards for about five blocks to where Clover Point pushed its circular shape out into the strait perhaps fifteen feet above sea level.

Mike took the cutoff, _just for the hell of it_, and drove once around the paved loop that circled the grassy field, his eyes on the quiescent grey green water. He didn't get out of the car, though he parked for a moment and watched a group of four men launch a gigantic box kite into the air. He watched as the kite finally took to the wind and then drove back up onto Dallas Road and turned right, continuing along by the water's edge.

Twenty minutes later he was pulling into the Oak Bay Marina parking lot. He was _still_ following the same little old man who had been driving 20 kph in front of him for the last ten minutes.

_I wonder how the old geezer manages to stay on the road; he is spending so much time frowning at me in his rear view mirror._ The old gentleman finally pulled achingly slowly into a parking spot outside the Marina restaurant, and Mike drove past to the far end of the long lot.

The asphalt at this end of the lot had seen better days and was cracked and eroded. In faded letters the signage painted on the surface read, "Sea World Parking Only." Though the Victoria Aquatic Mammal Protection Society had removed or covered the rest of the signage from the building they now occupied, they had apparently drawn the line at resurfacing the parking lot.

As he exited his car Mike checked the location out visually. Aquatic Mammal rescue couldn't have gotten a better location than the defunct Sea World building.

A late seventies style, wood frame cedar structure, it was all angles and plate glass, though it was weathered to the peculiar gentle blue grey color that cedar adopts when exposed to sun and wind.

It was multileveled with two private docks stretching out behind, and beyond the main building he could glimpse a series of various sized pools and outbuildings.

There were several cars and two yellow school buses parked in the lot, and beyond the building Mike could see people moving about in small groups by two of the pools.

He approached the main entrance and descended three bleached, railroad tie steps to the long walkway to the glass double doors.

The wooden walkway echoed hollowly under his feet and he realized that while one half of the building rested on a concrete foundation on dry land, the other half perched out over the water on concrete pilings.

Mike glanced over the thick rope railings and realized that it must be low tide. Below, he could see the golden algae covered rocks of the bottom through perhaps three feet of clear water. He looked outward to the docks extending behind the building into the ocean. He wondered if they had to dredge to keep it deep enough for moorage.

As he laid his hand on the push bar of the door, he noted the blocked windows of the old ticket booth and the sign that read, "We are solely supported by public contribution."

As he walked through into the echoing main area of the building he dropped a ten dollar bill into the large bottle that was labeled, "Admission by Donation Only."

There was a woman behind the desk and her head came up as he entered and for a moment his eyes met hers.

He saw her register the thought, "_cop" _and saw the subtle shift in her body language as she went on guard. He tried for the direct approach, and walking to the desk asked, "Is there a tour, or do I just look around by myself?"

The woman was perhaps fifty-five, thin to the point of emaciation, and her skin had the weathered and tanned, brown tone of a life that had been spent out of doors in the salt and the wind.

She looked him up and down and then responding to his open and honest gaze she said, not unkindly, "That really depends what it is you want to know, Officer."

Mike answered with a smile, "It's Detective actually, Detective Michael Celluci, and I really would like to understand what you do here."

"Well then _Detective_ Michael Celluci, in that case I think you will require _the tour_."

She smiled slightly, "My name is Becky, Doctor Becky Anderson. I am one of the veterinary marine biologists on call here, and as it appears that the regular tour guides are busy with the kids in from Sooke today, I will be happy to show you around and answer your questions."

She called a young man out of a back office and said. "Ben, keep an eye on the front desk, can you, while I show the _detective_ around?"

"Sure thing, Beck's," Ben said, leaning against the desk and giving Mike an unfriendly stare.

She came out from behind the desk and shook his hand firmly. "I think we will start in the Gallery and then work our way through the displays and then I'll take you out to the clinic and the pools so you can see firsthand why we do as we do."

The Gallery proved to be a long series of switchback photographic displays, commencing with studies of the natural life cycle of the seal and then moving on to stark black and white images of the seals in the water and on the ice flows. The credits for many of the photographs bore the name Orion Gaelan.

Mike lifted a finger to touch the Plexiglas covering the close up shot of an adult seal's face, the glow of curiosity and intelligence captured by the camera's lens.

"Mr. Gaelan is a very fine photographer," Mike said, the admiration in his voice genuine.

"Yes," Doctor Anderson agreed, "his work is among the best. He's based out of Toronto I believe, but he provides us with all these shots for the Gallery and for the displays, without charge, as a contribution to the Society."

Towards the end of the Gallery the images became more graphic and depicted angry confrontations between the seal hunters on the ice and the protesters who challenged them.

They came to a small enclosed viewing room, the sign on the door said, "Fourteen and Older Only!" Mike raised an eyebrow to the doctor.

"We screen a short series of pieces of candid footage shot by protesters during the spring hunt. Also clips from random confrontations with poachers. It's not really for the faint of heart," Becky said. There was no challenge in the comment, just a sad statement of fact.

Mike opened the door and moved to take a seat in the small screening room and Becky flicked off the light switch which started the play of the video footage.

She slipped into the chair beside him to sit stiff backed with her hands folded in her lap.

When he emerged from the room at the end of fifteen minutes his mind was full of the images of blood on the ice, the rising and falling of the sealing clubs, the piteous barking of the dying seals.

His memory held the image of the black eyes and noses of the infant white coats and the slow spread of their blood in the trampled pink slush underfoot.

His ears were full of the roar of the engines of the zodiacs, the sharp retort of the rifles and the angry shouts and curses of the protesters. He could hear the creaking of the lines and fittings of the tall ship the Lila where the protesters retreated.

His stomach churned and he was repulsed by what he had just seen. He suddenly shuddered with a creeping sense of revulsion as he remembered the fur vault in Jimmy Parker's house and the zippered body bags full of….

_I've seen much worse than this,_ he told himself, _much worse._ And yet he found himself profoundly affected by the casual cruelty and the sheer magnitude of the slaughter of the seal population and of the pitiless clubbing of the newborn _white coats_ in particular.

He felt Doctor Andersen's callused hand on his arm, "It never gets any easier to watch," she said sympathetically. "Why don't we go out to the clinic and the pools?"

Following Doctor Anderson, he emerged into the water grey light of the overcast afternoon and down a long wide flight of stairs to the level of the water. They passed by a small concrete amphitheater surrounding a deep pool where Mike could see several dolphins swimming in lazy circles.

"There used to be a killer whale show here," Becky said as they passed by, "but that was years ago, so the seats really only get occupied for lectures or tours now. Now we use this as our dolphin rescue pool." Mike could hear the distinctive chatter of the dolphins behind his back and then the raucous voice of a very disgruntled seagull.

They toured two small veterinary buildings that Becky referred to as 'clinics' and then she walked Mike out to the foot of one of the docks.

There were the cordoned off charred remains of a boathouse there and Mike could see the new lumber of a repaired section of the dock contrasted against the smoke blackened tops of the log pilings of one of the slips.

"Fire?" he questioned, with a nod of his head, towards the burnt out building.

"Arson," Becky responded bitterly as she walked out onto the dock. "They set fire to one of our larger sailboats and burned her to the waterline, and then they fired the boathouse where we stored the zodiacs just for good measure. They think that will stop us, but they are wrong," she said resolutely."

Mike looked down through the water to see the burnt hull of the wreck on the bottom. "Who are _they_?" Mike asked in a low voice.

"Oh, you know, _they_…whichever business interest or profitable venture or criminal low-life organization that we _inconvenienced_ recently." She smiled grimly. "It goes with the territory. It's not the first time and it won't be the last; we are just lucky that we caught it before the whole facility went up. We do try to keep a couple of people on site all the time now though."

"It's under investigation?" he asked, wondering why he hadn't seen any mention in the files.

She nodded as she waved to two young men on the opposite dock who stood coiling some ropes on the deck of the small sailing vessel; their eyes were watchful and wary as they looked at Mike. "Yes, by Arsons." She said.

Mike followed her back to the main building, past a battered tan colored pickup truck. There was a hoist welded in place on sliding rails in the back. A large canvas sling hung from the hoist, poised over a shallow plastic liner that could be used as a portable pool. Becky saw the direction of his gaze. "It's kind of a jerry-rigged animal ambulance and transport-rescue vehicle," she said. "We send it all over the island and mainland when we get emergency call outs."

"Aside from the fires, were there any other problems?" Mike asked as he reached past her to hold open the door of the Society Gift Shop that they were entering on the lower level.

As she passed through in front of him Becky said, "There were two separate 'random' muggings of Society members last month," the sarcasm was plain in her voice. "Both young men were beaten badly enough to be hospitalized for days."

"If you are really interested Detective, take a look around," she said, indicating the small shop with a wave of her arm. "There are plenty of books, pamphlets, CDs and such. I'll just nip into the lunch room and grab us a couple of coffees and then you can ask me whatever other questions you have. I really should get back up to the front desk."

Mike perused the racks of books and pamphlets and a picture on a CD cover jumped out. Liath Roane, "Songs of the Sea" the title read. There she was, her smiling face and deep brown gaze staring off the cover. When he turned it over he saw the inscription on the liner notes, "All proceeds of the sale of this CD go to the Victoria Aquatic Mammal Protection Society." _Nothing is ever as simple as it seems,_ he thought to himself.

He decided to purchase a copy, and then as he raised his eyes to a display of T-shirts on the wall, he laughed aloud.

When Becky returned with a mug of coffee in either hand he said, "I'd like to buy this CD and I need at least a couple of those T-shirts. I have a 'friend' who will get quite a kick out of them I think."

"Oh, you will love Liath's music," Becky said. "She does a lot of work for the Society; she has done so many benefit concerts with her friends to raise money as well as awareness. Liath has a way with words and the articles she writes are compelling. She is gone so often though, on the road with the group, but when she is in town she comes by to volunteer in the clinics. She has an incredible touch with the sick and injured seals, it's almost magical," she continued as Mike followed her up the stairs to the main area of the building again.

The two young men from the boat were now tending the desk and they glanced up with a certain amount of hostility in their eyes as Mike and Becky entered. Mike could see Ben, in an office having a heated conversation on the telephone; the door was closed but he could see him gesture angrily.

Mike asked Becky a few more questions as he sipped his coffee, and just to upset Tweedley-dee and Tweedley-dum behind the counter, he pulled out his notebook and made a few quick entries.

Mike paid for the CD and T-shirts that Becky wrapped for him and then made good his escape just as he saw what appeared to be a group of thirty grade school students approaching from the clinic.

He unlocked his car and decided that he would take a drive down to the Inner Harbor. Liath had said she would be busking down there today. He had some questions he wanted to ask her and more than that, he wanted to see her.

…


	16. Chapter 16

The forest of masts, of the sailing vessels at dock, swayed and bobbed. The tops of the furled sails visible behind the retaining wall that separated the traffic of the street from the foot traffic on the lower level walkway around the Victoria Inner Harbor.

Mike had finally found a parking spot and had abandoned his coat in the back seat. Rolling up his shirtsleeves he looked up at the scattering cloud of the sky. The watery yellow sun had broken through and was shining down warming the air.

There was a slight breeze that just lifted the hair and clothes of the passersby. City boy though he was, Mike could tell that the breeze was the precursor of some incoming weather and the high clouds scudding before it would be followed on by darker, wetter cousins.

Still the sun was bright enough now, and he retrieved his sunglasses from the dash. There were people everywhere, here at the inner harbor.

This was the city of Victoria at her finest. Wharf Street and Government Street, full of shops, formed one side of the tourist promenade. Opposite, across the small cove of the Inner Harbor behind a broad green lawn were the ornate granite BC Parliament buildings. They stood in their Edwardian glory; the grand entrance, the arched windows, towers and domes presided with an air of pompous hauteur over the edge of the harbor.

Enthroned between these two points, sat the aging jewel that was the Empress Hotel. Huge and regal, she was a grand, vine covered Lady. She had been built in the Edwardian style, more than a century ago. Four hundred and fifty rooms had been lovingly restored to their original splendor.

High Tea at the Empress was something that was a tradition in Victoria. Behind her sat the Convention center and across the street the provincial museum, but it was the Empress that held court in the Inner Harbor.

Mike strolled along amid the crowds, and though he was enjoying looking at the sights he found that his eyes were watching for a specific face, a brown plait, and his ears were waiting to catch a sweet laugh or the soft lilt of a certain voice.

_She said she was going to be busking at the inner harbor,_ he thought as he searched the crowd. Some people strolled by, some stopped to chat in groups and some just milled about taking in the sights.

A red double-decker bus pulled up to the curb and a flock of camera carrying tourists was disgorged onto the broad sidewalk. Mike stepped to the stone railing at the inside edge of the sidewalk to pass by the flock who were all stopped and craning their necks, looking about trying to get their bearings.

When he looked over the railing's edge, he realized that there was another walkway perhaps fifteen feet below, just as broad and just as crowded, but much closer to the water. Passing by the marina, it skirted the edge of the inner harbor.

There were multiple sail boats at anchor there as well as two tall ships, both small schooners tied up to the docks that stretched out into the water.

Directly below him he saw people standing in a semi circle watching a man juggling torches while simultaneously keeping up a loud and raucous conversation with the crowd.

Mike followed the railing until he came to a broad stair that worked its way down to the lower level walkway. If anything it was more crowded here, and as he descended, Mike benefited from the fact that he stood head and shoulders above most of the crowd.

There was a small group standing around what appeared to be a Tarot card reader seated on the bottom step with his cards spread out on a lap desk. Mike glanced down to the arcane cards spread out in a neat pattern, then swept his gaze further along.

He passed by two teenage girls, seated on folding chairs, playing a beautiful classical piece, one on the flute and the other the cello. Incongruously an Iroc-blue electric guitar lay propped against an amp behind them.

He allowed the crowd to carry him onward and it was when he was opposite one of the aging schooners that he heard her concertina take the air.

_It could be any one playing the concertina, _he thought_, but I am sure it's her. I know it is._ A moment later his confidence was rewarded when he heard her voice as it rose up in a song, the lyric not at all demure or reserved.

"_A handsome young sailor to London, come down._

_He'd been paid off his ship in old Liverpool town._

_They've asked him his name and he answered them quite:_

_I belong to a family, called Nine Times a Night..._

_Now, a handsome young widow that still wore her weeds,_

_Her husband had left her in money and deeds._

_Resolved she was on her, conjugal rights,_

_For to soften her sorrows, wi' Nine Times a Night..."_

There was a discordant chord and then a loud squeaking wheeze as the tune stopped abruptly and he heard Jenny's voice.

"Murray, I thought you were going to bring up the mandolin after the second verse?"

There was a mumbled response that Mike paid very little attention to, as he swung his head from side to side searching for Liath's figure.

When the music started up again he realized that it was coming from onboard the tall ship tied up to the dock close at hand.

He waited for the song, which had resumed, with the appropriate mandolin breaks to wind its way through to the last verse:

"_Says Jack, my dear bride, you mistook me quite wrong,_

_As I said to that family I do belong._

_But nine times a night's a bit hard for a man_

_I couldn't do it myself...but my sister, she can!"_

A final chord on the concertina and then Mike seized the chance while there was a moment of silence.

"Liath, Liath Roane," he shouted.

A hundred heads turned in his direction. His cheeks reddened but he persisted, all the while cursing his fair coloring.

"Liath, are you there? It's me Mike."

There was a discordant squawk, as she closed the bellows and then as the surrounding people turned in interest to watch, Liath herself appeared at the gangplank of the ship, her concertina under her arm.

"Mike," she called as she smiled down at him, the baby-fine ends of the hair that had escaped her braid lifting around her brow. We've just been having a bit of a practice, for the gig tonight."

Mike pushed back his hair from his face and shouted up towards her, the crowd around him forgotten, "I was wondering if you wanted to get a bite of dinner, before your gig."

Liath looked down on more than fifty upturned smiling faces, all awaiting her response. Her eyes found his.

"Give me but a moment Michael, I'll be right down."

There was a sudden smattering of applause, and blushing prettily, Liath retreated below.

Mike stood with his arms across his chest waiting and nodded brusquely to the couple of passersby who thumped him on the back in congratulations; he could not quite keep the grin from conquering his face.

***

At five they were sitting over thin porcelain cups of Sake and a platter of sashimi and sushi, in a tiny Japanese restaurant on Cook Street just above Dallas Road. Mike watched leaning on his elbows as Liath lifted the chopsticks to her lips.

"Tuna sashimi is one of my favorites," she said, "are you sure you won't try it Michael?"

Mike shook his head, "No thanks, Tempura and California roles are about as adventurous as I get."

She nodded, her smile only in her eyes. Mike watched her pat her lips with the napkin.

"Well then Michael," she said, "won't you tell me a little more about yourself? Have you been in law enforcement for a long time?"

Mike sat back in his chair, with a sigh. "It's that obvious is it?"

"Yes and no," she replied, holding the chopsticks poised in her hand. "It's obvious that you care a great deal about others. It's obvious that you know how to handle yourself. It's obvious that you have a kind and gentle heart. It follows that you want justice to be done."

Mike opened his mouth to protest, but she continued while he sputtered. "Unless I am seriously off my mark, and Michael, I have to warn you that I very seldom am, you feel a responsibility to make sure that justice is served and the weak are protected."

"Detective, with the Toronto PD," Mike said, admitting defeat.

"Ah," she said nodding. "Well, I suppose it was either that or superhero," she said with a glint in her eye.

Mike let out a relieved breath, "It doesn't bother you? Sometimes it makes people uncomfortable."

"That I guess would depend on what you are investigating, you're not investigating me, are you Michael?" she said laughingly.

Her expression sobered, when she saw his face. "Michael…?"

"Liath, I am here investigating a couple of organizations, tied to persons of interest in a multiple homicide investigation." He ducked his head slightly, looking at his cup. "This afternoon I met with Doctor Andersen at the Victoria Aquatic Mammal…"

"You met with Becky…" she said, her tone cautious, inquiring.

_Most people would be on the run right now,_ he thought, _it looks as though I met up with her only to further my investigation. That is the fucking last thing that I want her to think._

"Liath, when I met you on the ferry, I swear I didn't know you were involved with the Society, I just found out this afternoon…"

"Well of course you didn't Michael…how could you?" Liath interrupted, suddenly understanding his apparent unease. "How can I help?" she asked simply.

Mike glanced quickly to her face, "So you're not angry?"

She smiled and reached out to touch his cheek with her warm fingers, "Can you tell me about it, perhaps I know something or someone…?"

***

"So there was salt water in the lungs of all the victims?" Liath said as Mike unlocked the car door for her.

"Yes, and seal hairs found on all the bodies, which led us to the Aquariums and the environmental…activists," Mike hesitated before he reluctantly finished his thought.

When they were seated in the car Liath turned to him.

"It's all right Michael, I already knew I was an 'activist'" she said, waggling her eyebrows on the last word. "There have been some problems here in town," she said thoughtfully, "a couple of people beaten up and property destroyed, some threatening letters, that sort of thing, and Maxine Beaumont says her son Teddy is missing, since he went down to Toronto for a big exposé operation on a Chinese medicinal supply company trafficking in endangered species…parts." The look on her face said disgust.

"You don't seem too perturbed," Mike said, surprised by her calm demeanor.

"It happens more than you might imagine Michael, being in the way of someone's profit can be a dangerous place."

"Speaking of missing persons, there is also a connection to the Society through a client of my ex-partner Vicki Nelson."

He saw Liath's eyebrows rise and said quickly, "We used to be partners when we were both on the force, now she works as a PI. Anyways, she has a missing person case involving an Orion Gaelan. The same guy who is the photographer for the Society, I saw his work in the Gallery at the offices this afternoon."

He was driving back along Fairfield Road towards Liath's house.

_I can feel the net entangle me,_ she thought as she looked across at Mike, his attention focused on the car ahead for a moment. _I don't want to lie to him, there is something good in this man and I want to know him. I'll tell him as much as I think he will understand. I wish I could tell him…_

"Orion Gaelan is a distant relation of mine, Michael. I saw him in Vancouver not more than three weeks ago. Who is searching for him? Is it his…wife?" Her tone dropped to one of enmity on the last word."

"Vicki said it was his wife and father-in-law," he said, a little surprised by her tone.

"Orion was not…happy, inside of his marriage, Michael. He finally managed to escape that unfortunate entanglement. He said he was thinking of taking a job on a fishing crew, somewhere up in the Charlottes."

"And you haven't seen him since?"

Liath shook her head, "No."

"Turn left here," she said, "it's the fourth house along."

When Mike pulled up, he got out and went to the trunk. He lifted out Liath's guitar case and handed her the concertina case.

She leaned up on her toes, her brown eyes wide and soft and then she pressed a warm kiss to his lips.

"So will you be there tonight, Michael?" she asked, as his arms came up around her.

"Front and center, at eight o'clock on the dot," he said, and then he bent his head and returned the gentle kiss.

He stood, hands in pockets, on the sidewalk watching until with her last wave the door swung closed behind her.


	17. Chapter 17

The venue was a small dark hall behind a church, warm and wood paneled with the ubiquitous "church kitchen" at the back.

When Mike arrived at the Victoria Folk, at 7:30 p.m., he had thought that he might feel a little out of place. He paid his fee to the smiling, white haired woman at the front who took his five dollars and handed him a program and a newsletter just for good measure. She advised him that _The Mist O'er the Breakers_ CDs would be on sale at the intermission and after the performance.

The large L-shaped room was furnished with small tables and rows of folding chairs that were set up surrounding a small raised stage. There were no microphones, no speakers, no soundboards.

He stood for a moment of indecision. _I'd really like to get a coffee but there are more people coming in and I said that I would be front and center_.

He had decided to place his coat over the chair back to hold his spot and then join the line at the kitchen pass-through for a coffee, when he heard her voice.

"Michael!" she said, "Michael, over here."

He looked to the darkened back of the club and saw Liath beckoning him over. He made his way to her, and she leaned up to kiss his cheek.

The tall, thin, redheaded man beside her raised his brow and said aloud, "Oh so it's like that is it?"

Liath turned to him and said with a mock severity, "Mind your own affairs Andy! Michael, this rogue is Andrew our guitar player. Andrew, this handsome young gentleman is Michael."

Andrew took Mike's hand in a firm grip, and winking conspiratorially said, "Well I hope you know what you are about with this one, man. I'm off to get the rest of the instrument stands."

He smiled at Mike once more, "Good luck to you, then."

Liath waited in line with him while he got two coffees, and she introduced him to several people in the interim, all were friendly and welcoming. He began to feel more comfortable as he realized a broad variety of people were in attendance, from young high school age kids to a couple of biker chicks in leathers, to people who looked like college professors, to mechanics or fishermen.

She sat with him for a few minutes in gentle conversation until they saw two more case toting, musicians enter through the front door to a chorus of "hellos." Then Liath excused herself to go and tune up; Mike's eyes followed her as she made her way to the back.

Andrew finished arranging multiple instrument stands and two stools on the stage and then with a quick nod of acknowledgement to Mike, left to disappear into the darkened back of the club.

It was only a few more minutes until the hall was filled, every chair taken and not just a few people standing around the edges of the room. The individual greetings and conversations had blended into an overall hum of anticipation as people settled in their seats. The house lights went down via the services of an old man at the light switch by the door, and the host for the evening came on stage.

He made a few announcements about upcoming events and a short plea for volunteers for setting up the hall and then got down to business.

"Normally we would have one or two open stage performers and the 'ad hoc' sing before the feature, but tonight we are privileged to have six well known locals who, though they have played together for years, have banded together BRIEFLY to form, The Mist O'er the Breakers, or The MOB as the most of us like to call them. Please give a warm welcome to Mist O'er the Breakers!"

Over their applause the expectant faces of the audience followed the musicians as they came up from the back of the darkened hall. Mike had eyes for only one of those figures.

Then they were there on the stage, a close packed mass of six musicians and at least twice as many instruments. They stood in a row at the front of the stage. Liath stood short and solid and relaxed between a towering, thin, mustachioed man and redheaded Andrew. Then there was another beautifully manicured older woman with iron-grey hair, and then two younger blond bearded men like bookends on either side. Every musician held an instrument in front of their body but none lifted them to play.

Instead they composed themselves, standing quietly until the audience fell silent; the only sounds the rustling of clothing and an occasional throat clearing. Liath's eyes met Mike's and then in unison with no discernible prompt, all six voices raised in a swelling rolling a-cappella harmony that made hair rise on Mike's arms and his chest thrum with a sympathetic vibration. The tune was simple and minor with Gaelic words that Mike didn't understand, but he kept his eyes locked on Liath's for the entire time and just allowed the music to engulf him. When the song ended, a collective sigh lifted from the audience for a timeless second before the thunderous applause and foot stomping began.

The first half was given over to quiet airs and ballads, the forty minutes flowing past gently, only interspersed with loud applause and whistles and shouts of approval from the audience at the end of each piece.

At intermission the group left the stage, and Mike was disappointed that Liath did not reappear. He did however briefly speak with Becky Anderson, who greeted him as he was on his way to the door to get a breath of air.

While he was standing staring up at the clouded sky, his phone started to vibrate. He pulled it out, and saw it was Vicki.

_Shit, do I really need this now?_ he thought. But he flipped the cover open and held the cell to his ear.

"Hey Vic, look now's not a great time, can I…"

"When the fuck were you planning on returning my call Mike?" Vicki hissed into his ear. "You lied to me about seeing Henry. Why?"

"I didn't lie, Vicki, I just didn't want to go into it," Mike said, bringing his other hand to his forehead. "And I suppose his Highness just couldn't keep his bloodsucking trap shut could he?"

"Well, we _are_ going to go into it Buster. I'm going to be in Vancouver tomorrow and when I am…"

Mike cut Vicki off, dropping his hand to his side, suddenly angry, "So you're running right back into his waiting arms, are you Vicki? Well you better be careful. You may find that he's not the tame little '_graphic novelist_,' that you remember."

Her angry voice was audible, loud even, in the parking lot where he stood. He held the phone a little away from his ear. "Fuck you, Celluci."

"Right back at you, Nelson," he said, his voice rough with an emotion that he couldn't name. "What the fuck makes you think that you can go around screwing with everyone's heads and hearts and that there won't _EVER_ be any price to pay, huh? Or maybe it doesn't matter to you, as long as you're not the one who pays that price. You know what Vic? I'm done. You fucked me over big time, and you can't even imagine what you've done to…Arg! Fuck this shit!" Mike's momentary eloquence ran down to an inarticulate groan of frustration.

The silence on the other end of the line was complete except for Vicki's ragged breathing. Mike said in a resigned voice, "Look, I have to go…I'll call you." Then he disconnected.

He turned to see Liath leaning in the doorway, the sorrow on her face written plain. She looked into his eyes for a moment and then opened her arms to him. When he stepped forward into her embrace she turned her face up to him and kissed his lips, "I'm sorry Michael, I'm sorry for your hurt."

Mike looked down into the deep dark compassion of her eyes. "It doesn't matter now," he said. "That is the past."

Liath nodded and then slipped her arm around his waist, pulling his hip against her. "Well then," she said, "There's still the second half, full of jigs and reels and shanties to cheer you. Then we are off down to the Irish Times for an after party, will you join us?"

"Are you asking me for a date?" Mike inquired in a teasing tone.

"That sir…I am!" Liath smiled.

****

The inside of the Irish Times Pub was all dark shadows, warm bodies, voices and shuffling feet. The sparkling glass and polished brass bounced what light there was around the room, that…and the music.

It was crowded where Mike leaned against the bar, tight packed bodies on either side of him. He was working on his third _or was it his fourth _mug of beer? He turned and leaned his back against the dark stained oak of the bar and watched where not one but two fiddlers were chasing each other around the repeats of a jig, while Liath behind them played the underlying rhythm on the guitar.

When the song tune ended, there were whistles of approval and applause as well as the thumping of hands on tables and the bar behind him. A waitress scooted forward to lay a tray with a pitcher of beer and a number of mugs on a stool in front of the musicians.

Handing the guitar off to Andrew, Liath accepted a mug poured by one of the fiddlers and then made her way across to Mike. Her face was coated in a fine sheen of sweat and her cheeks pink with excitement and alcohol. Mike touched her cheek. "You are beautiful," he said, bending towards her and capturing her lips in a soft kiss of admiration.

When he drew back he saw her gaze darken and intensify _like…like…_.She leaned into him and raised her face to him. The tip of her tongue swept out to trace between his lips in invitation. Before he could respond she drew back and turned outward to face the musicians who had taken up a bodhran and the "small pipes." Liath leaned herself back against Mike and he felt her soft curves mold themselves to his body. The drum began a driving rhythm that the patrons picked up as foot stomping and hand clapping.

Mike brought his arms up to clasp his hands in front of Liath's body, resting them low against her, just below her waist. After a moment she rested one of her own hands gently over his. He felt her weight against him and he was filled with a sense of calm, a sense that all would be well. His heart grasp at that feeling, so rare, so fleeting were these moments of grace in his experience. Yet the feeling did not dissipate, instead it deepened, and filled him with a sense of peace.

***

When the Times closed down at two a.m., Mike knew he was too inebriated to drive, not that Liath would hear anything about it anyway. Neither would she allow any talk of calling a cab.

"It's a beautiful night Michael," she said teetering just a little. "We'll just walk."

Michael looked about the deserted downtown street at the fine drizzling mist that was falling, and said quizzically, "But it's raining?"

"Yes," Liath said slowly, nodding as though she were enlightening a child, "That is why it is beautiful."

Mike hoisted the guitar case and Liath the concertina case and they started off down Government Street, laughing and arm in arm, leaning into one another.

It took perhaps forty minutes to walk to Liath's house in Fairfield. They laughed and talked and Liath sang him, in a whisper, several rather ribald songs that had them both giggling under the cool touch of the misting rain.

At length they stood outside of Liath's gate. As she turned to face him, Mike placed the guitar case on the ground. He glanced up to the halo of light from the lamppost at the curb. He could see the steady fall of the misting rain against that light. He didn't want this feeling to end.

He looked down and took her loosely in his arms. She turned her face up to his, her eyes dark and deep pools above the gentle smile on her lips.

"I don't want to leave," he whispered at last.

She raised a hand to his cheek. "Why, then you should stay."

***

So it was that Michael Celluci, Detective and one of Metro Toronto's Finest, found himself, standing behind Liath as she fitted her keys to the front door. "Shhh…Shhh…" she shushed repeatedly as they tried to sneak across the kitchen to her bedroom, like a pair of teenagers.

Mike was pretty sure that the amount of noise they made could have woken the dead, but Liath's roommate had the courtesy not to investigate.

As the door of her bedroom closed behind him, in the dark against the window's soft glow he saw her silhouette cross to the bedside table. He heard her strike a match and saw the brief flare as she lit a candle that stood there.

She was beautiful, in the golden flickering light and as she crossed back to him her head was haloed in the damp curling ends of her hair. She reached up to his shoulders; her eyes never leaving his as she pushed his coat back to fall to the floor.

"Will you stay with me then…Michael?" she asked.

***

Her flesh was soft and supple, warm and yielding, under his hands. _Right, she felt right_.

They lay facing one another, side by side on the bed, each exploring the others body, with gentle touches, in the light of the single candle. Touch gave way to kisses and then taste as they found their way together along the ancient path.

When he lay atop her and was lost to himself in their joining, he felt the peace of surrender flow over him. Her soft sighs whispered over his muscled shoulders as, trembling before that final decent, he eased back to regard her face.

Her eyes were soft and hooded with her arousal, but grew bolder under his gaze. They were deep and wise and the irises and pupils huge and almost inhumanly dark in the half-light. She shifted under him, tightening that most intimate of embraces around him and he moaned aloud as he felt himself slide into the dark depth of her eyes. He felt her buckle under his weight as she followed close behind him.

There were no words between them as he slipped from her and turned on his side. He pulled the duvet up from the foot the bed and then drew her into his strong embrace and as he spooned his body behind hers she laid her head against his chest.

The last thing Mike remembered, as sleep came to claim him, was the soft rise and fall of her breasts against his arm and the sweet sound of her voice humming a lullaby.

***

_The liquid sky was green and wide as she winged her way to the surface. _

_The rumbling splashing of the waves and the call of the gulls were loud in her ears when her head lifted to the air. _

_She could see the man on the rocky shore. She called to him, "Michael." _

_The sound that emerged was the barking of a seal. _

_He did not turn around. _

_She slid closer to the shore and changed her form. What had been the comforting and buoyant home of the sea became a cold and cruelly insistent draw on her human limbs._

_She called his name, "Michael!"_

_He paused, searching the beach and the land in front of him though he still did not turn to the tide. _

_She struggled in the water and slipped beneath the surface, coughing and choking as she raised her face to the air again. He was still moving away, trailing a seal's pelt behind him through the sand. _

_She slipped under again and in a panic realized that she couldn't "see" her skin. She couldn't change. She began to sink, and she couldn't change. The ocean welcomed her with a chill embrace; she breathed in the cold salt water as the shining surface above wavered…_

Michael's arms tightened around her as she jerked in his grasp, though he did not wake. Her eyes wide and her heart pounding she lay on her side in his embrace.

_It is safe she thought…it is safe. She called her skin and its location to her mind. It was there, silvery and secure in its hiding place. Just a dream,_ she thought, _t'was_ _just a dream_, as her heart rate began to slow.

She held her eyes open to banish the memory of the wavering shiny surface above her, and turned in Michael's arms to rest her cheek against the sparse blond hair of his chest. She could hear his heart beating reassuring and strong, and he sighed softly as he adjusted his body in sleep to pull her close.

_T'was just a dream…_


	18. Chapter 18

Vicki Nelson hated getting the silent treatment; she hated it with a passion. She stood in the doorway of her office and regarded her assistant as she sat at her desk, straight backed and stiff and obviously angry.

Coreen with her incessant chatter, with her absolutely annoying and never ending enthusiasm, with her ready smiles and excitement, sat silent, staring straight ahead at her computer screen.

Experimentally, Vicki sighed loudly, hoping to get a response. She was rewarded with a tightening of Coreen's shoulders as she hunched a little more closely to her computer screen, resolutely ignoring the other woman.

"How about making some coffee, Coreen?" Vicki tried a different tact. It was already dark and they were almost finished tying up the loose ends before their flight to Vancouver tomorrow. "We only have a few more files to get in order and…"

Coreen pushed back her chair and stood up. Without looking at Vicki she said, "If you want some coffee Vicki you know I will be happy to make it for you…ANYTHING you want, Vicki." She started to move woodenly towards the kitchenette, her anger and upset written plain in her body language.

"Coreen, for God's sakes! What the hell is wrong?" Vicki demanded, her patience thinning to nonexistent status.

"Nothing," Coreen said, her voice dead, "Nothing is wrong, it's none of my business anyways."

"Coreen…" Vicki's voice held a sudden note of panic as she realized too late that the tiny Gothette had manipulated her into opening the topic.

"I mean it's really none of my business is it?" Coreen continued as though she were talking to the air itself as she picked up the coffee pot. She carried it to the small sink, saying to no one in particular, "Why would it be my business that two of the people that I love, yes I said love, most in the world are breaking each other's hearts. Of course that's none of _MY_ business!"

She waved the coffee pot briefly in the air after pouring the water into the machine, then set it down on the counter with a thump as she reached for the coffee canister.

Vicki stood open mouthed as Coreen continued, never glancing in Vicki's direction, "Victoria Nelson, Private Investigator Extraordinaire, so blind, yes I said _BLIND,_ that she can't see what is in front of her face and so stubborn that she wouldn't know love if it came up and bit her on the _ASS_."

Coreen dropped two scoops of coffee into the basket and swung it closed. She leaned on the plastic lid of the coffee to seal it.

"Then there's the Vampire Prince, gorgeous and sexy and too good to be true. Pining away for the object of his affections, so caught up in the whole tragedy of his existence, that he won't just take what he wants."

Coreen punched the on button of the coffee machine a tad too forcefully and with a toss of her black hair turned to finally meet Vicki's shocked gaze with her own kohl rimmed eyes, as she leaned her slim black clad hips against the counter.

"And the rest of us poor sods, who love you both," she said with a catch in her voice, "we're just supposed to stand by and watch you destroy each other."

There was a long moment of shocked silence.

"So are you going to fire me now?" she asked in a suddenly small voice.

Vicki removed her glasses and rubbed at the vicious ache that had started up above her eye. She shook her head and pursed her lips as she looked up at Coreen's blurry outline. "All this because I told you not to call Henry and tell him that we are going to be in Vancouver?" she asked finally.

Coreen let out a breath that she didn't realize she had been holding. Nodding her head she said miserably, "It's just so hard to watch, Vicki, anyone can see that Henry loves you, he would be so excited to know that…"

"It's complicated Coreen," Vicki interrupted. "Complicated in ways you don't understand. Henry has gone on to a new life in a new territory, that's how it is for him. When he tires of humanity and our petty problems and our brief lives, he moves on, I don't blame him, he has to."

Coreen thought of all the heart rending e-mail messages she had read that Henry had sent Vicki. She knew, she just knew that Henry was waiting for a sign from Vicki, something to indicate the way she felt. She didn't want Vicki to know that she had seen those private correspondences; she had to tread carefully, and it was a major coup that she had Vicki talking about Henry at all.

"Well even if he has _moved on _her tone providing the verbal italics, don't you think that he might be interested in seeing a couple of old friends from Toronto and showing them around his new city? I know I really would like to see him Vicki, I never even really got a chance to say goodbye before he left." Coreen was hoping she had hit the exactly correct wheedling note.

Vicki slid into Coreen's chair, laying her glasses on the desk top. "Do you really think so, Coreen?" She chewed her lip and then looking away admitted, "I mean I had that one phone call, but it just seems he either takes offense to, or is hurt by, every word I say."

The trepidation in her voice cut Coreen to the heart, "Yes, Vicki, I really think so. Can we call him and let him know we're coming?"

Coreen waited, and at last Vicki said slowly, "No, no we won't call him and tell him, we'll just show up and surprise him when we get there. He gave me his address so we'll just drop by right when he's rising, then we'll be sure to catch him in. That way he won't have to go to a lot of bother."

Coreen knew when to leave the field; she had won what she most wanted. This morning, Vicki had insisted that they would not contact Henry at all while they were in Vancouver, that they would do what business they had and then get out. Finding herself now to be in the position where Vicki had agreed to meet with him while there in Vancouver was a major victory in Coreen's campaign.

Coreen turned to the cupboard and pulled down a mug, poured a steaming cup of coffee and crossing the room handed it to Vicki.

She gave Vicki one of her perkiest smiles. "All right then, we should get this all tied up, we have a flight to catch at eight in the morning."

Mug in hand, Vicki wandered back into her own office, a slightly puzzled frown on her face.

***

It was almost midnight by the time they had finished up with whatever they could do in advance of their absence.

The last echo of Coreen's footsteps on the stairs and her call of, "See you bright and early tomorrow!" had dissipated as the street side door swung closed behind her. Vicki lowered herself into her desk chair and let out a heartfelt sigh. Coreen was a great help but witnessing her unending energy and enthusiasm sometimes made Vicki feel downright ancient.

She looked at her cell phone sitting on the desktop, and did a quick calculation. Just after midnight here meant it was after nine in Vancouver. Celluci had been avoiding her calls for two days now.

She knew from Henry's e-mail that Celluci had met up with Henry in a restaurant in Vancouver, and that they had had some words. So why had Mike lied to her? It didn't make any sense. Usually he was the first one to try to make trouble for Henry. Mike had seemed totally honest about his desire to have her tell Henry to keep away from him. _Of course she wasn't talking to Henry right now, so that might prove a little difficult. _But why didn't Celluci want her to know he had seen Henry? And why wasn't he returning her calls? Vicki knew Mike; it meant one thing. There was something he didn't want to explain to her, something he didn't want her to know, and she couldn't have that.

She picked up the phone and flipped open the cover, thumbing Mike's number. After two rings she heard him pick up. "Hey Vic, look, now's not a great time, can I…"

"When the fuck were you planning on returning my call Mike?" Vicki hissed into the phone. "You lied to me about seeing Henry. Why?"

"I didn't lie, Vicki, I just didn't want to go into it," Mike said. "And I suppose his Highness just couldn't keep his bloodsucking trap shut could he?"

"Well we _are_ going to go into it Buster," she growled. "I'm going to be in Vancouver tomorrow and when I am…"

Vicki heard Mike's indrawn breath and then his voice, suddenly angry, "So you're running right back into HIS waiting arms, are you Vicki? Well you better be careful. You may find that he's not the tame little '_graphic novelist_' that you remember."

_That asshole thinks that I am running after Henry —just like I knew he would— and I am sure that the egomaniac Princeling will think exactly the same thing. It was none of Celluci's business what she did. _"Fuck you, Celluci."

"Right back at you, Nelson," he said, his voice rough. "What the fuck makes you think that you can go around screwing with everyone's heads and hearts and that there won't _EVER_ be any price to pay, huh? Or maybe it doesn't matter to you, as long as you're not the one who pays that price. You know what Vic? I'm done. You fucked me over big time, and you can't even imagine what you've done to…Arg! Fuck this shit!"

Vicki was furious. _How dare he, how dare Celluci tell her that she was screwing around with people's heads and hearts, they were the ones…they were the ones that…_

The silence on the other end of the line was complete as she struggled for the words that would allow her to express how wrong and unfair that…

Mike said in a resigned voice, "Look, I have to go…I'll call you." Then the line was disconnected.

Vicki threw her phone across the room. She was not even rewarded with the satisfaction of hearing it smash, as it hit the back of the sofa and bounced harmlessly onto the seat.

_Aarrggg…men! What was it with all of them that they just didn't get it?_ She yanked open the desk drawer and roughly shuffled through the contents until she found a hair tie. She pulled her hair up into a too-tight ponytail and slammed the drawer shut.

_When she got to Vancouver, when she got there she would show both of those high handed asses exactly what she…I need to hit something, right now,_ she thought.

By 1:15 a.m., her arms were trembling with fatigue as she pulled off her boxing gloves. She was covered with sweat and gasping for breath as she lifted her swollen knuckles to her lips. But she felt calmer. She had pushed away Mike's hurtful words, locking them in a place where they couldn't touch her. She would call a cab and head home; she still had to pack her bag for tomorrow.

At 2:30 a.m. Vicki lay in a tangle of sheets, the red numerals of her clock counting down the minutes to her 5:00 a.m. alarm. Her suitcase sat by the door.

She was deep in a dream and she tossed and turned fretfully, her legs twitching…_as_ _she ran along the seawall in Stanley Park. The night was ebony black and the stars were brilliant, high above. Her footfalls sounded loud to her ears and her breathing was ragged. Her chest burned and she was trying to trying to run but…a figure emerged from the trees to her right and began to run towards her, she had to keep going._

_Run; run! She could see that their paths would intersect. She had to run faster. Her heart was pounding. The figure was closer now and she could see it was Henry, his eyes black and his fangs extended. If she didn't hurry he would catch her. _

_She put on a burst of speed. She was almost past when his grasping fingers caught at her shirt and they both went down, with a bruising force, to the ground. He was on her, his hands and body rolling and pinning her to the ground. He laid his weight on her as he lifted his face above her. His eyes were deep and dark and bottomless in the starlight. Standing behind Henry's shoulders she could see Mike, shaking his head as she screamed and struggled. _

"_Do you think that there won't EVER be any price to pay, Huh?"_

_Henry lowered his fangs towards her throat and she could see him swallow in anticipation. _

"_Vicki," he whispered longingly. As she felt him tear her flesh she breathed his name…_

The red numbers flicked over, counting down the minutes, as her whisper floated in the dark of her bedroom. "Henry…"

****

"Yes, Sandy, yes I know. No, you needn't worry about the submissions deadline. I told you the outline is more than three quarters finished and I am a long way ahead of schedule."

Henry paused and listened to the voice of one of his business agents on the other end of the phone.

"Sandy, we have been over this many times, I will not attend any daytime engagements. If it is of the, "utmost importance," to them, they can reschedule for an evening.

Sighing, Henry leaned his head on his palm where he held the phone to his ear. He picked up a pen and began to idly sketch the face of the woman to whom he was speaking on the corner of one of his drawings. It was not a flattering likeness, the open mouth far too large and her eyes small and squinted like… "I do apologize, Sandy, I missed that last bit, could you repeat it," he said into the phone, smiling slightly.

Fifteen minutes later, with the phone hot to the touch and the call concluded, Henry looked ruefully at one of the outline pages spread out on his drawing table. The margins bore several quick sketches of Sandy, all less than flattering and many considerably gnome-like in their appearance. All were rendered indelibly in blue ballpoint pen.

_Well you can't submit that page now, can you, Fitzroy?_ He told himself, _though it might be worth it to see…I'll just have to draw it again._

_Book signings in San Francisco, and then Los Angeles for the current release…complicated for travel given the time of year, but the flights are short, it should be possible._

_I'll contact Augustus, and see if he can arrange for a travel 'assistant,' and for safe accommodations, once Sandy firms up the dates. And then I'll need "dispensation of passage" from the resident holders of both territories, as well as for Seattle for the convention and awards dinner at the end of next month._

Henry laid the drawing aside and crossed to the window. His city was alive below him, the streets still busy with cars and pedestrian traffic though the time was well after midnight.

He did not need to feed this evening, not after what he had done…last night. His lips thinned a little at the memory. Still, he thought he may take a walk down Robson. The late night theater crowd and the club patrons would be on the streets for at least a few more hours, there would be plenty of activity.

Arteros' was a new coffee shop that he had discovered, full of young artists and poets and musicians, seeing and being seen. Perhaps he would drop by; it was busy until two at least and often longer.

When the phone had rung earlier for a brief moment he had thought…but no, he should have known, he could only endure.

When he had risen this evening, rumpled and fully clothed and curled around his pillows, he had thought that perhaps he may just lie there in the dark and listen to the sea. He had fed fully and the hunger would not force him to rise tonight, but in the end he had roused himself, showered and changed and spent the next three hours working steadily on his drawings.

Housekeeping had come and gone while he sat at his work. Galena, the sixty something housekeeper, had kept up an easy banter in Russian with him whenever their eyes met. Somehow though she had known he was troubled and had pressed a peppermint scented kiss to his cheek and patted his hand when she had gathered her things to go.

****

He narrowed his eyes as he stepped out into the bright lights of the lobby, Tanya was behind the security desk as always and there was a large bouquet of deep red black roses on the counter.

"Oh, Mr. Fitzroy," she said as she rose from her seat, "are you on your way out?"

Henry came up closer to the desk. He smiled engagingly at the guard and said, "Yes, I am meeting some friends for a late night drink." He raised a finger to the black rolled edge of one of the petals. "They say that red black roses in a bouquet indicate a bashful apology," Henry said.

"They are beautiful aren't they?" Tanya said.

Henry nodded, "Who are they from?"

"Well, that's the strangest thing, they had a little card with them that said, '_you won't remember my transgression, but I sincerely apologize.'_ I mean I meet some pretty rude people but why would someone send me such a beautiful bouquet?"

"I suppose he was right then, when he said you wouldn't remember," Henry said as he turned away.

"Good evening Tanya."

****

The plane swung out wide in a huge arc as it approached the Vancouver airport from over the water. Coreen with her face pressed to the windows could catch glimpses of the slate grey water and the tidal flats visible between the ragged low clouds below. "So much water! Did you know, Vicki, this is the first time I've ever seen the Pacific?"

"So much for sunny Vancouver," Vicki groused as the plane shuddered a little with some turbulence on its final approach.

The pilot had warned when they took off from the stop-over in Calgary that the coast was socked in with rain and fog, and their approach over the Rockies had been just a trifle bumpy. Then there had been an hour of flying through cloud until they had finally dropped low enough to see the tidal flats laid out in front of them. Despite the bumpy ride, the landing was perfect and they came down to earth on the West Coast smoothly.

The airport was crowded and noisy, when they exited the plane but once out in the main terminal, Coreen kept grabbing Vicki's arm and pointing out the huge native sculptures.

The open floor plan and soaring roof were all suitably impressive and very "West Coast" to Vicki's mind. The mountains of the North Shore were nothing but a darkened smudge on the drizzling grey across the tarmac.

Coreen was virtually dragging Vicki along by the arm, babbling something about baggage carousels and the damn gigantic suitcase that she had checked.

Finally Vicki dug in her heels, "Coreen, enough! It is going to happen in this order: first coffee and then luggage and then a taxi."

Half an hour later they were safely ensconced in the back seat of a Checkered Cab and en route to their hotel. Vicki was working on the cool dregs of her large coffee and staring through the steamy window of the cab as it rolled down Granville Street.

The gracious homes were set well back from the dripping green trees that lined the street. If she focused slightly ahead she could watch the pedestrians on the street hurrying by with umbrellas or in waterproof parkas. _There are way too many people walking fucking dogs and on bicycles,_ Vicki thought to herself.

Coreen sat back in the seat and turned to Vicki. "So this is Henry's new territory eh! I wonder how far out from the city center he...you know," she said, rolling her eyes towards the driver and lowering her voice to a whisper, "...hunts."

Vicki just shook her head and turned her eyes to the window again. She could hear the swishing of the wipers and the low voices of Coreen asking the driver about this or that, but her attention was focused on the streets. All of them had a sense of strangeness about them. They looked foreign and she just couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing.

She wondered, _was this how they had felt to Henry, when he first made this city his own, strange and foreign? How many cities and how many times had he moved on? _The rain poured down outside the warm closeness of the cab.

When they passed through to downtown over the Granville Street Bridge, the cityscape became more familiar to Vicki's eyes. The driver turned left and headed along the water. English Bay lay soaked in the falling rain, the beach deserted and the water that was visible through the mist, grey and troubled.

Coreen turned excitedly to Vicki, "I asked him to drive by Henry's building just so we could see it, then he'll take us through Stanley Park and around to the "Georgia Annex" Hotel."

"Coreen…" Vicky said warningly, but she didn't have the heart to continue, given how excited the Goth was. When they passed in front of the tower bearing Henry's address Coreen grabbed her arm and would have squealed aloud if Vicki hadn't clapped a hand over her mouth.

Then they were past and into the leafy dripping green of the park. For once Coreen was silenced as she watched the towering old growth trees standing silent and hoary in the misting rain. Vicki's imagination flew to an enclosed dark space high above, in a concrete tower where she knew the vampire sheltered from the pale grey light of the wet day, his heart at rest, beating so slowly as to be imperceptible, his smooth cool limbs in….

A horn honked to tell the cabbie to merge in front, startling Vicki from her reverie and then they were suddenly out of the park and into the Georgia Street traffic, eventually arriving at their hotel a few moments later. The Georgia Annex was a small and intimate old world style hotel. A tasteful red brick building on a residential side street, it boasted no more than twenty rooms on four charming and vine covered floors. Even in the dull grey weather the faceted windows sparkled with a welcoming sheen.

Vicki turned to Coreen and asked in appreciation, "How do you do it Coreen? On two days notice find not one but two rooms in a place like this, half way across the country?"

Holding the handle of her huge rolling suitcase Coreen simply rocked heel to toe and smiled, as the cab pulled away. "I have my ways," was her only response.

Eventually they were settled in two paneled, adjoining rooms on the ground floor, both of which featured French doors which opened to the manicured garden of the courtyard.

Coreen was enamored with the room and was soon hard at work, setting up her laptop and all her equipment. Their first appointment at the Vancouver Aquarium was tomorrow morning. She had already informed Vicki that her intention was to explore the hotel and then have a leisurely nap.

Vicki was restless; something troubled her and she could not seem to sit still. They had made plans to go for dinner on Denman at 6:30 that evening, Coreen insisting excitedly that that would give them plenty of time to be at Henry's doorstep when he rose.

Sitting around for three or more hours was going to kill her, or at the very least cause her to wear a hole in the Oriental rug in her room. In the end Vicki changed into her sweats and decided to take a run. If nothing else it would ease some of the tension she felt building up in her shoulders.

She promised Coreen she would be back in plenty of time and then she started out in the grey light of the afternoon. The air was cool and wet, not rain at this point but a steady and pervasive drizzle that she knew will have her soaked through before she returned.


	19. Chapter 19

As Vicki hit the foot of Georgia the light was against her, and pony tail bouncing, she jogged in place as the cars spun past, the water cast into the air by their tires. Once she crossed the intersection, instead of heading hard to the right and taking the seawall towards Brockton Point she jogged down through the echoing concrete underpass.

On the other side she dug in her toes on the slippery wet grass as she climbed over the rise into the park proper to head up towards the Aquarium, passing first the bronze monument of Robert Burns and then, a few moments later, the imposing statue of the august Lord Stanley.

It was quiet in the park, there were very few people about and the air though fresh with the salt tang of the sea, had a hushed and quiet solitude about it. When Vicki came up onto the wide concrete walkway leading up towards the Zoo and the Aquarium she began to pick up a little speed.

She could feel the droplets of the mist hitting her face and as she moved more freely over the ground, her stresses began to dissolve in the pumping of her blood.

She passed an elderly woman in a tweed coat with rosy red cheeks and a large umbrella. She was walking two rather bedraggled looking Yorkies who swung wide away from Vicki as she came up alongside. "Good afternoon, dear," the woman said as Vicki raised a quick hand in greeting.

She could see the bulk of the Aquarium buildings ahead as she started briefly down slope. The Aquarium Gift shop was lit up and glowing against the rain, even though it wasn't yet four in the afternoon. Beyond the main pools and buildings of the Aquarium the older buildings of the Marine Mammal Rescue were visible.

Vicki's attention was drawn to a tan colored battered pickup truck parked with the headlights on against the over cast day. The truck was pulled up close to the edge of one of the rescue pools and the tailgate was lowered. Vicki could make out the blurry shapes of several men gathered around the bed of the truck.

Jogging in place she removed her glasses and dried them against the soft material of the inside of her T-shirt. When she replaced them the world was marginally clearer.

She realized what she was watching was a rescue in action, and decided to jog closer to get a better look at what was going on. She could see that there were two men who were winching a seal in a canvas sling up off the bed of the truck.

A third, dark haired man, in a deep blue fleece and jeans was soaked to the skin and bent with his head against the seal and his arm resting comfortingly over the seal's body.

She was close enough now that she could hear the sing-song nature of the dark haired man's voice as he appeared to be crooning soft words into the seal's neck.

She was no more than a few yards distant when the dark head came up and she caught a glimpse of deep dark brown eyes and the handsome face of Orion Gaelan. The same face that she had been studying for a week now in photographs.

"Orion Gaelan," she called out as she moved towards him. Gaelan looked up, shocked, into her face for a moment, and then pushed his body away from the truck bed. His feet slipping on the wet ground, he started to run in the opposite direction, away from her.

He slid, going down to one arm as he skidded around the corner of the building and then as she closed to within a few feet of him his longer legs began to pick up speed. Behind her she could hear the shouted inquiries of the other men and the discordant barking of the injured seal.

Vicki tore up the slope after him calling out in her best cop voice, "STOP."

He didn't even slow and she could see that he was faster than her as he ran straight down the parking lot that would take him to Third Beach.

He had opened a ten yard lead on her as he crossed Park Drive, the squeal of tires loud as a car narrowly avoided striking him. Vicky was forced to slow to skirt the car and its trembling driver and when she looked up Orion had scrambled down the rocks and was running full tilt across the sand towards the water.

Suddenly Vicki knew what he was going to do. "Orion," she shouted,"I just want to talk."

When she was at the bottom of the rocks she peered through the rain to the water. Orion Gaelan was up to his knees now.

Vicki tried hard to bring her eyes into focus as his silhouette, against the drizzle, blurred and then re-formed, as no more than a sleek spotted head and shoulders above the water's troubled surface. The whiskered head turned as selchie regarded her soulfully, and then slipped beneath the waves.

The rain had started to fall more heavily, as Vicki ran right up to the water's edge, bending over with her hands on her thighs to catch her breath.

She pushed her hair back from her face and blew out her cheeks. She scanned the choppy surface of the water until it disappeared in the mist, but the selchie never reappeared. When she looked down at her feet the blue fleece that Orion had been wearing was rolling in the incoming waves.

If she had not heard Linda Gaelan's voice as she told the story of watching her husband transform in the moonlight she might have doubted her own eyes. She looked up and down the beach; as far as she could see the sand was empty, as was the seawall and the road behind it.

_I just saw a man transform into a seal__,_ she said to herself, as she fished the jacket out of the water to check the pockets which were of course empty.

She laid the fleece on a rock and then started to make her way back across the beach to the rocks. Once she was back on a level surface she began to jog back up to the Aquarium.

Of course as she came over the rise to the rescue pool she saw that the pickup truck and the other men were gone. She had no way of knowing which one of the seals in the pool was the injured one that had been in the truck.

She checked her watch; it was now 4:45 PM and the rain was beginning to fall in earnest. Vicki was soaked and frustrated and she decided to head back to the Hotel.

A hot shower and some time to do some research on the internet and a couple of Advil were as far ahead as she wanted to think. She kept her attention focused on the ground as she made her way back to the Georgia Annex.

****

The rain was falling heavier now and twenty-five stories up the wind whipped the drops against the stainless shutters. They drops beat a staccato rhythm against the smooth surface, but they were denied access as was the deepening afternoon light.

Inside his sanctum, the air was still and moist. The orchid blooms hung suspended, still in the cool air, on their long tensile stems. Small drops of condensation formed, liquid on the spotted columns of the blossom's throats.

The vampire rested on his back, the deep blue sheets spread over his chest and legs. His muscular arms lay relaxed at his sides, his long fingered hands unfurled and open on the bed.

His chest did not rise or fall; neither did his eyes shift back and forth under his closed lids in the human half-life. Yet he had none of the waxen aspect of the dead, though that was what human kind would name him.

Attuned to the swing of the heavenly bodies, the Vampire waited out a turn of the celestial dance and when the sun quit the floor, he would take the hand of his partner the moon.

***

Coreen leaned forward across the table, her dark eyes excited and intent. "Tell me again what it looked like when he," she lowered her voice, glancing from side to side before continuing, "transformed!"

"I told you Coreen, I was a little ways away, and it was raining. He just sort of blurred around the edges and then there was a seal in the water instead." Vicki shook her head slightly as she saw again the sorrowful brown eyes of the selchie as he had looked back towards her.

"So at least we know Orion is still alive. Do you think we should call Linda Gaelan and let her know?" Coreen asked.

Vicki shook her head, "No, I will call them and give them a report in a couple of days; I need to know a bit more of what is going on first. I meant it when I said that I won't tell them where Gaelan is unless he allows me to divulge the information. As far as I am concerned, if he is not guilty of any crime, then Orion is the victim here."

The waiter laid the large platter of nachos on the table between them, and as he straightened Vicki tapped a finger against her empty margarita glass indicating that she wished to order another.

Coreen arched an eyebrow at her in a passable imitation of Henry's royal inquiry.

"What?" Vicki responded.

"Oh I don't know Vicki, it just seems like you need a little bit of liquid courage," Coreen drawled as she picked up a chip and dipped it in the guacamole.

It was after seven as they sat in the Mexican-style Cantina less than four blocks from Henry's address. Vicki watched the street visible through the windows. It was still raining heavily and to her eyes it was so overcast it looked almost dark.

Coreen had told her earlier that the sun would set at 8:38 tonight. "Yes, she had looked it up."

There had been some discussion as to whether or not Henry might conceivably rise earlier when it was so overcast, but in the end they had decided that if he 'slept' even though in a totally dark room, then the amount of light in his environment was not the determining factor.

This was one of the many details of Henry's existence that Vicki realized that she just didn't know. Coreen had been particularly pleased with this little piece of deductive reasoning. Vicki had resolved to ask Henry about it, that is if he was still talking to her.

_"Are you calling me a Liar?"_ had been the last correspondence she had had from Henry. Admittedly he had called and she hadn't picked up, but it hadn't been the most 'auspicious' of endings to their last conversation. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure of the reception she was going to get when she and Coreen paid their _surprise_ visit to Henry.

Coreen watched Vicki; she knew she was struggling, and she did feel a little sympathy for her, but mostly she just felt determined. _I've made it this far, half way across the country. I am not going to let her off the hook now. What I wouldn't give to have Henry attracted to me the way he is to Vicki. Sometimes life is just SO not fair! Well, once I get them together let's hope that they can manage a bit better than by e-mail. My God, I have never seen two more stubborn…_

As Vicki lifted a loaded nacho to her lips, Coreen smiled brightly across the table and said,

"So I have a great idea how we can get the security guard in Henry's building to let us upstairs…"

***

At eight thirty exactly Coreen and Vicky stood outside Henry's apartment building under a large umbrella. The rain fell endlessly from the night sky above them and the beach across the four lanes of traffic was lost in a rolling mist that muted the lights and sounds of the city behind them.

After having retraced their steps to a Café/Patisserie, Coreen had spotted a block before the Cantina, they had purchased a small but exquisite Birthday cake. Coreen had produced from her voluminous bag what was obviously a gaily wrapped bottle of champagne.

As they walked up the short low front steps of the building towards the brightly lit lobby, Vicki could make out the female guard behind the curved security desk.

_Very__ swank, when the security desk sports a bouquet of two dozen black roses,_ she thought. _This place is __exactly to Henry's taste__!_

_  
_

Vicki jumped a bit as the loud buzzer sounded, and balancing the cake on her hip, Coreen reached out to open the building's door. _Show time,_ Vicki thought.

Coreen in all her enthusiastic, kohl-lined, Goth glory fairly skipped across to the security desk, while Vicky busied herself folding the umbrella before following at a more sedate pace.

The Gothette leaned forward on the security desk and began her full frontal assault.

"Hi, my name is Coreen Fitzroy, and you are?" Her eyes fell momentarily to the name tag at Tanya's chest. "Oh yes…Tanya. Hi Tanya! Wow I have always liked that name. I had a friend in high school who was named, oh well that doesn't matter right now, anyways. I'm Henry Fitzroy's sister."

Coreen struck a pose. "Can you see the resemblance, most people can't, but he is my brother, though I am know that he sometimes doesn't like to admit it. Do you have any brothers?"

Tanya nodded once, open-mouthed.

"Oh well then you know what I mean. We are as different as night and day." Here Coreen lowered her voice conspiratorially, "And we don't always get along, we had a bit of a fight last week, as a matter of fact. Henry really doesn't like Edge, that's my new boyfriend, says he has too many piercings, can you believe it! But that doesn't mean that I would miss his birthday that would just be too mean, right?"

Tanya raised her eyes imploringly in Vicki's direction.

_I'm __don't think that I have__ seen Coreen__ even __take a breath yet,_ Vicki thought. _For a novice she plays the game of good cop/bad cop pretty good. I'll give it a minute or two more so that Tanya gets really panicked before I step in and rescue her._

"So I got to thinking that what better way to apologize than to bring him a surprise birthday cake.

Did you know today was his birthday? No? Well, that doesn't surprise me; he always was a bit of a party pooper."

Coreen turned to Vicki and motioned her forward with a wave. She turned back to Tanya with a swing of her black hair.

"Show her the cake Vic," she said as Vicki started forward and laid the cake on the counter. Coreen's voice raised a notch; she was now in full swing and approaching the volume and pitch level of a squeal.

"Don't you just love it?" she asked Tanya, never pausing for a response.

"I wanted a black one but Vicki talked me out of it, she's good that way you know. Hey do you want to see a great picture of Henry and me? We took it about six months ago, right before he moved here," she said as she placed the "birthday" champagne bottle on the counter and pulled out her wallet to begin flipping through the photos.

Once again Tanya looked into Vicki's eyes. The plea in her gaze was plain and this time Vicki acted after allowing enough time for Tanya to see what was indeed a picture of Henry Fitzroy with his arm around his "sister" Coreen.

"Coreen," Vicki said in her most reasonable tone, "I'm sure that…Tanya, is very interested in all of this, but really we just want her to call up and let Henry know that we are here, don't we?"

Tanya looked rather fearfully at Coreen.

"Not really Vicki," Coreen replied, "I mean don't you think that the front desk calling ahead will kind of ruin the surprise?" She turned her dark eyes on Tanya, "You don't want to ruin the surprise do you?"

Tanya shook her head no.

"Good!" Coreen said, all bubbly good cheer. "Then we'll just go straight up."

She crossed to the elevator and pressed the button and then turned back as Vicky was carefully gathering up the cake.

"Did I tell you how much I love black roses? I really do and those are beautiful. Someone told me once that they mean that someone is sending you an apology, did someone do something that…"

Any thought that Tanya may have entertained of detaining them fled as Vicki snagged Coreen's sleeve and dragged her towards the elevator. As the door slid open, they entered the dark paneled cubicle and when the doors eased closed, Vicki cast Tanya a long suffering glance.

Tanya shook her head as she resumed her seat. _Poor Mr. Fitzroy_, she thought. _They don't pay me enough for this kind of thing!_

***

"Coreen, you deserve an Oscar," Vicki said laughing her voice full of admiration. The elevator started its slow ascent to the top floor.

"What?" Coreen said, but her smile gave her away.

The Gothette looked down at her watch, _8:38_. _The sun was just setting. This is the most critical part,_ Coreen thought.

She passed the champagne bottle to Vicki. "Here hold this a minute." She pushed her hair back from her face and straightened it over her shoulders and then took the cake box from Vicki.

_Whoa, Vic is starting to look a little nervous,_ Coreen thought. She was watching the buttons on the panel light up as they passed the floors. Coreen saw Vicki's tongue dart out to moisten her lips.

_Twenty-three…twenty-four…and…twenty-five_, the elevator halted and settled. As the door swished open Vicki forced herself to put one foot in front of the other as she walked out of the elevator into a glassed in Atrium.

"Jeez," she said, "I don't know why I feel so nervous I mean it's not as if…"

Too late she heard the swish of the doors as they closed. She turned just in time to see Coreen through the narrow gap as the doors whispered closed, smiling sheepishly and leaning against the close button.

"Damn it Coreen!"

She just knew that Coreen would not allow the elevator to return to the top floor, even if she had to ride it all night.

_Here she was, the great Victoria Nelson, stranded, bottle of champagne in hand, outside of Henry Fitzroy's door._


	20. Chapter 20

He opened his eyes to find his lungs full of the freshet scent of the falling rain on the air.

One of his requirements for his sanctuary was that the outside air be continually circulated through the space. He had long ago surrendered to this requirement as a necessity; to "awaken" to the stuffiness of an enclosed environment sometimes triggered ancient terrors, which he had no wish to relive, even in memory.

The contractor employed by Augustus had done a masterful job of arranging for the airflow without the noise of fans or the alteration of the sanctum's consistent cool temperature.

His eyes traveled to the metal shutters; he could hear the drops of rain beating hollowly against them as the wind buffeted the exterior surface. He could hear the rain drumming against the high ceiling of the room, though a human would have heard nothing but an oppressive silence. Below the rattle of the rain he was aware of the persistent rolling grumble of the disturbed ocean as it lapped at the shore.

The hunger was there, as he knew it would be. It was his body's prompt to his mind. The hunger coiled low in his belly, a barely there ache, perilous to ignore.

With a sigh he turned on his side.

_It's wet tonight; there will be fewer people about. Perhaps I should try the theater district; it is probably time I hunted a bit further afield_. _If I leave early, I could feed and be back in time to do the preliminary priming of the canvas for the gallery in Gastown next month. I should receive those new Daniel Smith oils that I ordered online any day now; I'll check with Tanya, they may already have arrived. I'll call down and ask._

He threw back the sheet and rising, crossed to the double doors. He slipped the locks and passed through the dark room intent on the intercom. On his first indrawn breath, he paused and his face swung round to the entrance to his apartment. On his first indrawn breath, he knew…

***

_Kicking the elevator doors was childish; she knew that, as was the mantra that was running around in her mind, Fuckity-fuck-fuck-FUCK! Oh! Coreen you are so going to…Shit I don't even know what…but…something, Uhhh!_

Vicki turned in a tight circle, looking for the stairway and twenty-five flights to escape. The hard contour of the champagne bottle was clutched to her chest as her eyes hit the red-lit exit sign. Before she had taken a step towards it, she heard his door open behind her.

"Vicki?"

She heard the disbelief in his tone.

_Caught in the act of escaping. This is like some B-Grade horror movie,_ she thought, her brain doing some strange and disjointed dance. "_Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch . . ." she flashed back to a Three Stooges clip that she and Henry had laughed over almost a year ago now._

Expelling her breath in an explosive sigh, she turned to the vampire.

He stood in the darkened doorway, one hand on the frame, and one arm thrown up to protect his eyes from the bright light of the atrium.

Obviously he had just risen, as he was still wearing his sleep pants and nothing else. Her eyes took in the tousled hair and the pale muscled torso, moving on to fall over the arch of his ribs to the low slung waist band of the soft gray flannel where it dipped low under the navel dimpling the flat planes of his taunt belly, then to ride back up over the slim hips.

She raised her eyes back to his face, where he stood squinting and blinking. She saw him succumb, as he closed his eyes and raised his chin, scenting the air, seeking the validation of his other senses.

_My God_, she thought, _he looks so young, so beautiful, how could he ever…_

His eyes opened, tearing with the glare and his lips parted slightly, a puzzled frown overcoming his brow.

She shifted her stance, standing with one hip raised, the slightest of challenges evident in her posture. She could feel the weight of every one of her human years. Taking a single step forward she held out the wrapped bottle cradled in both hands, towards him.

"Happy…Birthday…Henry"

***

He had crossed the room in a blur and had unlocked the door and pulled it open, quickly even by vampire standards.

_Foolish, foolish_, the brilliant light of the atrium virtually blinded him as, too late, he realized his error, throwing up his arm in front of his face.

He couldn't control the disbelieving hope that tore the name from his lips before he could bite it back.

"Vicki?"

He couldn't control the hope anymore than he could control the rise of the somnolent vampire within, who sprang to life with a howl. Though he managed to give no voice to the word that echoed around and around in his mind…_mine, mine, Mine._

Closing his eyes against the pain of the brilliance, he resorted back to the vampire, lifting his chin to draw in the scent of…her.

_Mine, mine!_ His instincts shouted in his ears.

That sweet scent, preserved in memory, the sweet scent that was all her own, the spice of her anger and the tearing attraction of her stubborn fear, convinced him this was no apparition.

He opened his eyes, viewing her through the blur of protective tears.

He could not think for the echo of the vampire roaring in his ears as Henry held him back. _Mine, mine._ He frowned trying to make sense of this shift in his reality. _She was here?_

She moved a step towards him holding out her hands, her voice, sweet as a long forgotten melody, words that he knew he understood…_mine, mine_…

It was when she said his name, that he lost his grasp…

*****

She felt the impact against her back at the same instant that she realized she was moving.

Her breath left her in a whoosh as the sprung arch of her ribs flexed with the impact against the wall. They flexed inward and then could not expand for the immovable force that pressed her against the hard surface.

The vampire leaned the entire length of his body against her, his arms on either side of her shoulders, imprisoning her between them.

She could not breathe.

The bottle, which had dropped from her hand, spun slowly to a halt, unbroken, against the lip of the elevator door.

She could not breathe.

The vampire's head nestled in the crook of her shoulder, and she could feel a cool slickness where he nuzzled his lips and tongue wetly against her flesh. The vampire shifted his stance slightly and she felt the growing hardness that swelled positioned tight against her pubic bone. She felt the lift of her body against the wall where he pushed himself upward against her.

She could not breathe.

"H-Henry," her heart hammering, she pushed out the little remaining air in her lungs to whisper his name close in his ear as the nuzzling became more insistent and she felt the soft texture of his lips replaced by the smooth hard surface of his fangs pressed flat against her pulse point.

He drew his face back, in response to his name; midnight black eyes searched her face above his emergent fangs.

She could not breathe.

She could find nothing in that gaze that she recognized. The empty eyes slid away from her face and he looked down to where his chest pressed hard against her breasts. He ground the hardness trapped between them against her once more, a look of pain crossing his brow, and then she felt the terrible pressure ease away from her chest.

The vampire raised his face to hers again as she drew in a gulp of air and then another. She could not name the expression she saw in those moist black eyes, but she knew at some instinctual level that it was death to look away from the gaze of the predator.

For an endless moment they stood so and then, he was gone.

Vicki doubled over, sucking in long breaths as black spots floated before her eyes and her stomach rebelled in shock.

_What the fuck, what the fuck just happened?_ She thought as she straightened and lifted a hand to wipe at the wetness of his saliva at her throat.

She studied the glowing red exit sign and then the blank darkness beyond Henry's open door.

Trembling, she bent and retrieved the bottle from the floor. On unsteady legs, she crossed the few intervening feet.

She could still hear her heart pounding as she stepped into the dark.

***

The darkness inside Henry's apartment was complete, the light from the door sufficient only to catch the hard edges of the furniture of the living room. Vicki was blind, in unfamiliar territory. She felt her way. Easing her foot out one step at a time, her hands stretched out, groping the air in front of her.

She listened for some indication of the vampire's presence, some indication that he might attack, but all that she heard was her own heart pounding.

_I wonder how Henry likes the sound of that..._the random thought crossed her mind followed by, _Nelson what the fuck, are you doing?_

Finally her questing toe contacted the bottom of Henry's sofa and as her hand touched the leather back she leaned forward, her hands finding an anchor in the blank dark. Feeling along the sofa back with her fingertips she found its arm, and then the nearby end table.

When her groping fingers touched the base of the lamp, she breathed a sigh of relief that her blindness was about to end.

At the flick of a switch, the room was softly illuminated by a golden glow, barely sufficient for Vicki's limited vision. Vicki whirled around to look around the large room, but there was no vampire lurking in the shadows.

With the courage that the light provided she called out to him softly, "Henry?"

There was no response. She walked slowly to the open double doors of the bedroom; the soft light from the living room illuminated the space enough that standing at the door she was able to feel for the wall switch by the door.

If she had expected to find him cowering in his sanctum, she was wrong; the bedroom and the adjoining luxuriously appointed marble bath were empty.

Returning to the main living space, she crossed to the pristine modern kitchen, switching on light after light as she went, driving back the threatening dark.

Though she called out to him twice more, still he did not answer.

She crossed to the stainless steel shutters covering what appeared to be a floor to ceiling bank of windows, and ran her fingers over the cool satin-brushed finish of the metal. This was his safety, his protection. She took a strange and obscure comfort in the knowledge that Henry was safe here.

She could hear the sound of the rain and feel the trace of a damp breeze against her cheek. She followed the source of these sensations, which eventually led her to the foot of the circular stair to the roof.

At the top of the stairs she could see that the door was standing open and the rain was blowing in to drip steadily from the open metal treads, to the dark hardwood below.

She saw him as soon as she emerged into the rain at the top of the stairs. The vampire leaned out against the railing. He was staring down to the street so far below.

_Oh my God! Is he going to jump?_ She thought, a wave of terror so intense it made her knees buckle passing over her. The vampire lifted his head, no doubt scenting her terror.

As she approached him he turned towards her, leaning his weight against the rail, He was drenched, the cold rain slipping from the loose tendrils of his hair to run down his pale shoulders. It funneled across the 'V' of his shoulders to flow downwards over his pale chest. The soft flannel of his sleepwear was plastered against his lean muscled thighs. He was standing barefooted in a puddle on the gravel.

His eyes, when she caught his gaze, were huge and dark in his pale face.

Vicki knew that Henry was not really dead, despite the legends to the contrary. His heart beat, he breathed and he felt and he bled. She had seen it with her own eyes, dealt the injury with her own hand. She knew that he was not dead even when the sun took to the sky. But here, in his roof garden in the rain, the voice that emerged from him was as expressionless and uninflected as a voice from the grave.

"Why are you in my territory?" he asked flatly. His tone indicated that there could be no possible reason for this to be so.

She halted, perhaps five feet distant from him, when she saw his muscles tense, either for flight or for attack. Henry's hands were clasped tight on the railing, the muscles of his arms corded with his effort to remain in place. His eyes were dark and unreadable; the tips of his fangs dented the soft surface of his lower lip.

She had seen this Henry before. She had seen him chained and broken in a church basement with that cursed golden device clamped over his heart.

Tonight, his pale chest slowly rose and fell unblemished, his nipples tight and hard in the chill rain. Yet the same feral and wounded spirit looked out of those fathomless eyes. As she had done then, she spread her hands away from her sides, open and empty, the message _I am not a threat _clearly written on her body.

She did not move closer as she said clearly, "I am not a fucking vampire, Your Grace, I don't need your leave to travel to Vancouver!"

Whether it was her familiar sarcastic tone, or the honorific or just the logic of her statement, the horrible taut tension eased in his shoulders.

Henry pushed himself off the railing and swept past her and as she turned she saw him fade further into the leafy darkness of the garden. Vicki was cold and already wet through and she wanted to go back into the warm light of the interior, but she trudged a few steps after him eventually losing him in the darkness. She took a few tentative steps forward and when she halted, heard his soft voice off to her right.

"I'm here."

She turned towards the sound. She could barely discern a pale shape that appeared amid the dripping vines; she edged forward until he was in her view again. He appeared to be seated on a stone bench, but when she made to approach him he spoke again.

"Stay back, Victoria." It was not a request.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

"Why the HELL should I stay back? You were pretty damn '_glad to see me'_ back inside," she said, her fear and guilt making her anger flare. "What the fuck was up with _that_…?"

"THAT is why you need to keep your distance, please Vicki. Give me a few moments." The words emerged in a choked and tightly controlled voice, the tone one of self-loathing.

She watched him wrap his arms around his torso and saw his chin drop to his chest and she knew that he struggled with what he had referred to as his "_urges._"

"Take your few moments," she said, "but do you have to take them out in the fucking rain? I'm fucking freezing here." _The sarcastic tone seems to draw him out a little she thought, wondering if she could keep it up when her heart was whispering to her "Was Mike right? Was Henry paying a price for his involvement with her?"_

There was a trace of the Henry she knew, in the voice that responded.

"I see that your vocabulary, hasn't substantially improved, in my absence."

"No, no probably not…Henry, what is it? What's wrong?" She hazarded a step closer. He drew in a sharp breath, and then let is out in a long slow sigh.

"You're cold, and wet," he said. "We should go inside."

He did not rise matching his actions to his words, but as she turned away and headed towards the door she was aware that he was behind her, keeping a careful distance between them.

When she got to the bottom of the stairs she moved into the living room, judging correctly that he would not descend the steps while she stood at the bottom.

_You have to look a pretty picture Nelson_, she thought, _soaked through like a drowned rat, hair plastered flat, covered in goose bumps and shivering like you have the palsy._ She took off her water-flecked glasses and wiped uselessly at a drop that ran off the tip of her nose with a wet coat sleeve. _Mind you, out of the romantic setting, the vampire wasn't faring much better._

Bedraggled and dripping water on his hardwood floor, Henry stood warily at the bottom of the stairs, blinking in the flood of light that Vicki's insecurities had created. His flesh was still satin smooth but he shivered with a fine tremor where he stood. The soaked cuffs of his pant legs dragged to the floor leaving him standing in a puddle and after a moment he grasp the waist, bunching it up in one hand, to keep them from riding indecently low on his hips.

"If you go through the door to the left of the kitchen there is a guest suite there. You should take a hot shower Vicki; I wouldn't want you to catch a chill. Everything you need should be there. I'll loan you some dry clothes." All this was said in a tone so devoid of innuendo and suggestion that Vicki found it hard to believe it was Henry speaking.

Still he stood waiting, head down at the bottom of the stairs, one long fingered had clasped tightly around the railing and the other, defending her modesty, tangled in wet flannel.

"Henry," she said softly. When he looked up his eyes were clear and cerulean in the pale face.

"Go ahead Vicki…I'll not trouble you."

***

The heat of the water helped, the warmth did something to draw back the human to the surface.

He raised his face from the spray and allowed the water to beat down against his chest and temporarily heat the surface of his skin. It would not last, but it was a momentary, if fleeting, comfort. His flesh would grow cooler and paler by degrees the longer he went without feeding.

When he felt calm enough, he turned off the water. He could still hear the sound of the shower running in the guest bath as he took a towel from the holder.

Why was she here? Why had she come, and why suddenly, did her presence in his territory make it so hard to rein in his instincts?

When he had seen her there so golden and glowing surrounded by a brilliance so bright that he could not bear to look, he had hoped at first she was a waking dream, a hallucination brought on by his hunger.

His instincts had risen full-blown when he had scented her, truly scented her in the close confines of the atrium. When he had known that she had willingly entered his territory, that she had submitted herself to him.

Even then he had held on, knowing that she did not know the ramifications of her actions.

She did not understand that in the terms of his instincts she was HIS. She did not understand the restraint she was asking of him, as she hovered tauntingly within his grasp.

Yet he had held the vampire back, even as she held out her arms to him, her sleeves drawing up to bare her wrists, the glowing substance of her life displayed pulsing below the surface.

He knew she didn't understand. He knew it…until she said his name.

In that moment, the vampire slipped from his grasp and then he no longer knew anything but instinct.

He had been so close, so close. In the steamy warmth of the bath his sex tightened again at the memory. Her body under his control, her very breath his to grant or withhold, her life his to taste or to take.

Why was she here, when she did not want him?

***

Her hair wrapped up in a towel and her skin reddened by the heat of the water, Vicki left the bathroom cloaked in a soft burgundy bath towel.

The guest room was calm and softly lit. True to his word Henry had left folded on the bed a pair of soft loose black sweatpants and a pale violet blue long sleeve T-shirt. There was no underwear and hers were soaked so she did without. She groaned softly at the soreness over her ribs, pulling the shirt over her head and down over her bare chest. There would be bruises by morning she was sure.

There was a soft pair of black fine woolen socks, which she pulled gratefully on to her feet, remembering the dark wooden floors of the living room. She towel dried her hair and used her fingers to comb it back away from her face.

Henry had been right, she had been thoroughly chilled and the heat of the shower had helped warm her physically. It had done nothing to melt the cold solid lump of what she feared might be guilt, that sat like a rock in her heart.

When she emerged from the guest room she held the wet clothing she had been wearing in a bundle in front of her body. Henry was bent over the coffee table lowering a tray, with a decanter of brandy and two snifters. He looked up, clothed in the same informal fashion, his hair fluffing into soft curls as it dried. _That is so not fair,_ Vicki thought.

"There are a stacked washer and dryer in a closet in the kitchen," he said. "I'm sorry...I don't know how they function; Galena does the laundry while she is here."

Vicki headed for the kitchen, asking in an only half teasing voice over her shoulder, "Galena, huh! So you have a sweet young maiden to wait on you."

He did not answer until she returned to the living room, the sound of the drier tumbling, muffled by the closet doors.

"Actually it's more like I have a Russian Babushka to wait on me," he said. "Though she did kiss me on the cheek the last time she was here."

"Hrrmmppff," Vicky said as she lowered herself to the chair across from Henry, drawing up her legs beneath her.

She could see that he had opened the protective shutters on the windows so now she could see the night sky and the reflected color of the lights below in the water that ran down the glass.

He had turned off some of the lights and the room had a warm lamp lit glow, not entirely sufficient for Vicki's comfort. She supposed that it was brightly lit from Henry's viewpoint though; she had forgotten how sensitive he was to artificial light.

Henry had poured some of the golden liquid into the snifter and moved to set it on the table in front of Vicki. Vicki picked up the glass and sniffed experimentally. "I don't drink much brandy." She said.

"You should consider it as medicinal, to ward off a chill," Henry replied, a hint of his humor coloring his voice, though his body remained tense. He sat back on the sofa, holding his own glass. "You need to hold the bowl of the glass between your palms," he said, illustrating by cradling his own snifter. "To warm the brandy closer to body temperature," he continued, "that way the flavor is enhanced."

"So I guess you drink yours cold then," Vicki quipped and then could have bitten her tongue at the way his face fell.

"Henry, I…" she began.

His eyes met hers as he said, "Years ago, I had a dear friend, Ann. Whenever I would visit with her and her husband William we had a long tradition of enjoying a brandy. Ann always warmed my glass just so for me. He lifted his cradled glass by way of illustration.

"Do you still see them?" Vicki asked while mimicking his actions and swirling the golden liquid slowly around the snifter.

Henry shook his head. "I lost them both in a plane crash in Montreal, in eighty-eight. I miss them," he said simply. "Every time I pour a brandy, I think of them."

"So they knew that you…" she began.

"That I am Vampire…yes," Henry finished.

Vicki was silent for a moment and then, reached across to hand Henry her snifter. His eyes met hers as she lifted his glass out of his grasp. When she tapped them together, she said. "Here's to new traditions." Then she watched as he sipped the warm liquid, before bringing his cool glass to her lips.

Breaking eye contact, she rose and crossed the room to the windows. "Nice place you've got here…" she said, internally cursing her conversational ineptness.

Henry spoke from the sofa, "Why are you here Vicki?"

"Hmmm?" she inquired, trying to buy herself a little time.

"You heard me Vicki, why are you here in Vancouver, here, in my territory?"

Vicki knew in her heart the question he was asking, and she also knew the answer. But she could not admit it, even to herself; if she did, she feared he would somehow, _KNOW_. He had brought her to the brink, and she back peddled away from the edge.

"I have a case," she said slowly, testing the waters. "A case with a supernatural element…"

He had been watching her keenly; his blue gaze unblinking and she wondered suddenly, _what do his "extra" senses tell him? Does my heartbeat give me away, my scent, my pheromones…my fear? The way he tilts his head a little to the side and his eyes lose focus just for a second, like he is listening to something I can't hear. What does he know?_

He leaned back in his seat. A slight frown played over his features. _He just let me off the hook, at least for now._ She thought, relieved.

"A case…" there was a disbelieving pause. "Two cases which bring both you and _the Constable,_ coincidentally, into my territory at the same time?"

"I told you Henry, I don't need your permission to come to Vancouver," she said irritably.

"We've established that Victoria. You said there is a supernatural element? I am sure that is making the good detective, ecstatic."

"Actually Mike doesn't know," she said a little sulkily. "When I called him to tell him, we got in an argument before I had a chance to enlighten him. He spent a little while telling me what a fucked up person I am, and then he hung up on me."

The aristocratic brow arched upward and Henry smiled slightly as he drawled. "You and Celluci got in a fight? I'm shocked! Let me guess, you umm, called him a liar?"

"Well, sort of…" she replied uncomfortably, remembering only too well the last e-mail correspondence she had had with Henry.

Henry allowed the rest of the brandy to slip warm down his throat. He needed to feed, but he needed this more.

He set the glass on the tabletop. "Perhaps you had better start at the beginning."

***

Henry watched Vicki as she paced back and forth in front of the window.

"So you see I just had this feeling that Linda was keeping something from me," she said.

He watched as she raised her arms to tie back the honey colored hair that had dried while she told her story. _The soft knit of her shirt rode up and then as she lowered her arms, was trapped under the weighted curve of her breasts, smoothly molded and outlining that full round shape…_

Henry dragged his attention back to her words; if she had noticed his lapse, she gave no sign.

"That was when she told the story of how she found out her husband was a seal. How she watched him change form in the moonlight, how she stole his skin to imprison him," Vicki said, shaking her head.

"Selchie," Henry said, an inward focused expression on his face.

"Yes, that was the name she used, Selchie" Vicki said. "Do you know about them?"

"I have had some dealings with the Selchies in the past, but that was long ago. It did not occur to me that they may be here in my territory." Henry said.

"Do I want to know how long ago?" Vicki asked.

"Probably not," Henry shook his head slightly then continued, "And you believed this Linda person when she said her husband was a Selchie?"

"You're not the only one who knows how to tell if someone is lying, Hank."

Henry inclined his head gracefully, choosing discretion.

"Even if I hadn't believed her though, I saw Orion Galen while I was on a run in the park this afternoon. He was at the Aquarium with a group of men at the marine mammal rescue there. When I called out to him, he took off running across the parking lot to Third Beach."

Vicki paused and then went on, "I chased him but he was…faster. By the time I got to the beach he was in the water up to his thighs. I watched him transform. He just kind of blurred around the edges and…"

"And then slipped away into the water," Henry finished her thought, his eyes deep blue with memory.

"Yes, one minute a man and the next minute a seal," Vicki said. "So do you think you could help?"

"Your clothes should be dry by now, Victoria," he said standing. "Get dressed. I think we should drive over to the park. I want to look around."

***

The parking lot of the aquarium was deserted at almost midnight, when Henry guided his Jag smoothly into the spot closest to the Marine Rescue buildings.

The rain had eased off and there were small breaks in the heavy clouds overhead where the clear black depth of the midnight sky showed through. The wet surface of the asphalt of the lot was bright in the reflected light of the lampposts of the parking area.

The ride to the Aquarium had been short and conducted mostly in silence. Vicki could see that Henry's body thrummed with a contained tension which she had not seen in him before.

As she watched the wet Vancouver nightscape stream past outside the windshield of the car, Mike's words came back to haunt her.

"_What the fuck makes you think, that you can go around screwing with everyone's heads and hearts and that there won't EVER be any price to pay, Huh? Or maybe it doesn't matter to you, as long as you're not the one who pays that price_." Again she wondered what price had Henry paid for his involvement with her, and the consideration of her culpability tore at her carefully constructed defenses. She shook the thought away.

Once they had parked, Henry turned in his seat and said, "You can stay in the car if you wish; I just need a chance to..."

"Like hell, I'm going to sit in the car and wait," Vicki said as she popped her seat belt and opened the door.

"Some things never change," Henry said under his breath.

"What was that?" Vicki asked, though she had heard full well.

"I said...some things never change," Henry repeated louder.

"You should know, _Your Grace_," was her response.

There were no lights on in the Aquarium complex proper, but there was a single window lit in one of the "rescue" buildings. Henry held up a hand to Vicki, silently telling her to wait as he edged up closer to the building. He appeared to listen for a second or two and then held up three fingers.

_Shit, _Vicki thought, _three inside._ Then she saw Henry slip around the corner of the building and out of sight. _I hate being left behind to wait_, she thought, as she crept forward to the corner of the building and peered across the moonlit yard to the pool.


	22. Chapter 22

Henry approached the side of the pool. Though the night was dark, he had no difficulty seeing the shapes of the seals in the water of the pool. It was no more difficult than discerning the three human hearts that beat inside the building. No more difficult than identifying Vicki's heartbeat as she waited for him crouched at the corner of the building.

He came stealthily to the pool's edge, staring down into the water. A seal flitted from the far side of the pool in a long deep graceful arc, to skim the bottom and then rise suddenly to the surface, blowing, in front of Henry where he waited at the pool's edge.

The vampire could see the glow of the creature's aura, not human, not prey...other. Henry remained crouched as the dark brown eyes met his. His eyes darkened to black and he scented the air finding a distinctive note that confirmed his suspicions.

The recognition of that signature scent was an ancient memory; it ran back through the centuries to his own beginnings. The outline of the seal blurred and there was suddenly a pale skinned young man, up to his shoulders in the water, hanging from the edge of the pool and looking up into the vampire's dark eyes.

"Nightwalker," the selchie said, "I mean you no challenge." The vampire cast his mind back...Nightwalker....

****

Henry had been walking for almost two hours when he scented the night air and breathed in the trace of the sea. The rutted wagon track shortly emerged from the trees to wind ahead across the open grassy headland of Boddin Point, that moonlit, reached out towards the ocean.

He was about half way across the distance to the cliffs at the ocean's edge. The wind was blowing off the water, carrying with it the scent of the brine and the sea wrack. He had been sunk in his consideration of the sound of the ocean's breath when he suddenly lifted his head.

There was the distinctive sound of multiple horses coming fast over the ground. He half turned as he glanced over his shoulder, the wind whipping his curls around his face. At least ten men on horseback were coming quickly over the grasslands behind him, clods of earth flying from their horses' flashing hooves and the hounds surging out ahead.

_Surrey, God no!_ He thought. It was too late to conceal himself, his only option was to flee. He dropped his travel cloak to the ground and ran, knowing that once the horsemen saw the speed with which he moved, they would know him for what he was.

He lips were pulled back in a snarl as he heard the hounds behind fall on his cloak, ripping it to shreds as the voices of the huntsmen called out to one another.

"Cai, Andrew, to the left…cut off its escape." Henry heard the command as Surrey's voice rang out in the night air.

A hiss split the air beside his head and an arrow buried itself in the ground to his left. He was approaching the bluff's edge now, and was running out of earth. The night air stretched empty out in front of him as he looked down to the surf that crashed white and hungry on the rocks below.

_I cannot…I will not allow Surrey to know what I have become_, he thought as he was brought to bay at the cliff's edge.

He could scent the heat of the hunt in the dogs that circled him belling and snapping. He hunched in a protective stance and bared his fangs, snarling, his eyes as black as the pits of hell.

One hound lunged forward and the vampyre hefted it from underneath as it jumped for his throat, sending it howling to fly over the cliff edge to the rocks below.

There was a sharp and burning pain in his chest. When he looked down it was to see the fletching of an arrow protruding from his shirt only an inch above his heart.

The horsemen were almost on him and the hounds circled and yammered, driven into frenzy by the scent of his blood.

The Fledgling spread his arms wide, as though he could fly or as though he could drift on the sea breeze and allowed himself to tip backwards into the empty night at the edge of the cliff.

***

The churning, cold water surged forwards and back, pushing him up against the sharp rocks that sliced and bruised his flesh and then sucking him away into its icy embrace again. He was cold, cold but for the burning above his heart and the slow kindling heat of the hunger, low in his belly. The cold and the dark claimed him.

***

He could feel the heat on the side of his face and behind his closed lids the vampyre could sense the brightness.

His instincts flared and his body jerked with his flight response, _the day was upon him_…

Fire shot through his chest at the movement.

"Peace, Nightwalker," a soft and feminine voice whispered. "The dawn is yet an hour off, you are safe here."

The firelight was golden on her skin when Henry opened his eyes. The material of the clothing she wore was coarse against the smooth silk of her flesh, where she sat on the ground opposite him. Her shawl fell down as she moved across towards him, reaching out.

The Fledgling shrank back with a hiss and his fangs dropped.

"Peace," she said again. "The huntsmen will not find you inside this cave; neither will the sea claim you. It is my own sanctuary that I share with you, Nightwalker. Let me tend to your wound, before you sleep."

Henry raised a hand to his chest, and in a voice that was rough from the salt water he had swallowed said, "I will heal. How do you know what I am and knowing, choose to…assist me?"

She smiled as she sat back on the dry bracken on the floor of the cave and drew her shawl tight around her shoulders again.

"How is it that I would not know you, child of the night? Am I not myself the child of the sea? Inside this cave no treacherous human heart beats."

Henry frowned and lifted his head drawing in a long breath, he rolled her scent around and examined it, his blue eyes narrowed as he realized _she was not human_, _was not prey_.

His eyes travelled slowly about the cave's walls and low ceiling and to the opening that led away to a tunnel that curved beyond his sight. He could feel, somewhere above, the slow approach of the sun.

She shifted slightly and his eyes flew back to hers, warm brown and full of compassion and secret knowledge.

"What are you?" the vampyre whispered.

"Here the people call us the Selchies," she said, smiling sadly.

Henry's eyes widened. In his eighteenth year, and dead and risen again he was still not so far from his nurse's knee that he had forgotten the cradle stories. "Seal Maiden," he whispered.

She barked a laugh that had nothing of humor in it, "No Nightwalker. Selchie I may be, but a maiden no longer. A fisherman holds my skin and keeps me by him…to wife," she said shaking her head sadly. "He will not return to me the skin that he stole, and so I cannot return to the sea, but must stay in human form on the shore."

The vampyre considered this as he felt the lethargy of the day steal over him.

"And you help me because…?" he questioned.

"I help you because, like me you are other than human, and the humans who pursue you, mean you harm," she said, her eyes warm and open and tinged with a wistful curiosity.

"You will be safe here; I promise you. I will block the entrance when I leave. The day will not find you here, neither will the huntsmen. Tomorrow night I will return with some clothing for you and you will be free to go your way."

Henry glanced down at the damp, salt encrusted tatters that remained of his clothing. "I thank you," he said.

"Oh don't worry," she smiled, "it will be naught as fine as the young laird's clothes that you were wearing."

Having said so she rose, and crouching, made her way from the cave. He could hear the sounds of brush being piled against the entrance.

When she was gone the Fledgling, groaning, turned on his side amid the bracken that formed his bed. He was healing; he could feel it as he could feel the sun swing over the lip of the horizon.

When the world is dark again, he thought, I will wake heal...

***

A mournful bleating filled his ears as the distinctive pungent scent of goat filled his lungs with his first indrawn breath.

The vampyre opened his eyes to regard the underside of the goat's jaw moving slowly around and around as the beast chewed its cud directly above him. He turned his head to the side and glimpsed the bulging udders between the goat's legs.

Pushing the goat aside, Henry levered himself to his elbow.

The selchie sat across from him, grinning, holding the nanny goat's tether.

"I brought you something to drink," she said, nodding towards the goat.

"I thank you," Henry replied, as the hunger roused plaintive within, "but…I do not drink milk."

The seal woman smiled broadly, "Oh, the milk is for me Vampyre, her blood is for you. You can drink other than human blood, can you not?" she asked in a matter of fact tone, as she handed the tether and then a bowl and a sharp little knife across to Henry.

She placed her bowl beneath the nanny and nimbly stroked the teats. Soon enough the bowl brimmed with warm frothy milk.

She sat back and held the bowl to her lips, looking directly at Henry's face, her eyes peat brown and shining with curiosity and amusement. He watched as she dipped her head to sip the warm rich milk and when she set the bowl aside she used the back of her hand to wipe the foam from her lips. "Drink," she urged him.

After a moment's hesitation the Fledgling laid aside the bowl and knife and pulled the goat to his chest and though she bleated at being restrained the goat relaxed against him. He pushed her head gently to one side and eased his fangs into the taut neck. As the warm blood flooded his mouth he closed his eyes, shutting out all external stimuli. He drew gently and with care, measuring the flow of the blood across his tongue until he knew he could take no more without harm.

He opened black eyes to see the selchie's deep brown gaze regarding him beneficently over the rim of the bowl.

"I did not know..." she said quietly, and then asked more briskly, "Will her blood suffice?"

He withdrew his fangs and in a mirror of her earlier action swiped the back of his hands across his lips. The goat sprang a few steps distance as Henry released her and then she began to nose amid the bracken on the cave floor.

Henry nodded as his fangs retracted and the darkness lifted from his eyes. "Until I can find my rightful prey, yes, I thank you, madam."

There was a moment of silence then and the selchie sat comfortable with her arms wrapped about her knees. She finally stirred, and handed him a bundle of plain clothing from the basket at her side, saying, "The sea fog is on the strand tonight. Would you travel on?"

The Fledgling shook his head, setting the long auburn curls bouncing. He made a small moue with his sensuous lips and then said, "No, not tonight. There is a fisherman I wish to see, about a seal skin."

***

The cottage was neat and well kept, with the orange flickering light of a peat fire wavering through the open door.

They approached from the pebbled beach. The small boat drawn up and overturned above the tide line was the testament to the trade of her master.

She had led the way from the cave, which it turned out, had opened from a narrow slit off a rock ledge in the cliffs of the headland.

As they passed over the rocks below the cliffs, three seals hauled themselves out of the water and barked a hoarse song to the fog diffused moon. The selchie gave no sign, but the vampyre saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

When they had returned the goat to the pen, they entered the cottage. The selchie crossed quickly to the hulk of a man who lay half asleep in a drunken slouch on a stool beside the small fire on the hearth.

The smell of fish, sour beer, peat smoke and human sweat assailed the vampyre's senses as he stood in the shadows.

"There you are my pretty, my selchie wife," the drunk exclaimed in a slurred voice full of fondness. "Come here to me, my wife," the fisherman said, grasping at her arm and tightening his grip as she pulled back. He dragged her forward, raising a grasping hand to her breast. "You are home from the shore. Come to my arms, my selchie."

Between one moment and the next, the vampyre had the drunk by the throat and pressed against the cottage wall.

The drunk's clouded eyes widened as he looked into the face of the Nightwalker**. **His heartquailed at the sight of the pitiless black eyes and sharp hungry fangs. The sudden warm smell of urine floated into the room.

Henry leaned in close and with a snarl said, "Where is it? Where is her skin, human? Tell me!"

The drunkard shook his head no and closed his eyes even as the vampyre exerted his will compelling the human to speak.

Henry asked in a hissing whisper as he brought his face close to the fisherman's, "Have you kept the selchie's skin?"

The drunk nodded miserably and his blurry gaze found his wife who stood across the room, her hands covering her mouth.

In the fire lit shadows of the cottage the selchie heard the sibilant voice of the vampyre as he compelled her captor to speak.

"Where have you secreted the skin?" Henry tightened his control.

The drunk shook his head no, miserably, even as he said aloud, "It is at a cobbler's shop, through the green curtain, there is a small room. There is a small flat chest that is . . ." he swallowed once as he struggled but then continued, "under the bed. I kept it safe, I kept it safe, a spotted silver seal skin folded and wrapped. . ."

The vampyre cast a glance over his shoulder. The selchie was already running out the door.

He turned back to the drunken fisherman and his black eyes were cold, his lips stretched in a toothy, predatory grin. "I hunger..." he said.

***

It was nearing dawn as the vampyre made his way back to the selchie's sanctuary.

He had thought that perhaps she might be there, but the echoing dark of the cave's interior was cold and empty. He lowered himself to the floor and amid the rustling of the bracken, arranged his body in preparation of the dawn.

He was flushed with the blood of the human who had imprisoned the selchie. Linked to the human as he fed, he had impressions of the fisherman's thoughts and emotions. The human was a lout and a drunkard, but he had loved the seal maid with a tragic desperation that in the end had caused the Fledgling to spare his life.

Have I spared him or condemned him to a life without her? The vampyre wondered fuzzily, as the dawn filled the sky.

***

He felt her palm on his chest as he drew his first breath and for a moment his heart quailed at the thought that his Sire was beside him.

When he opened his eyes it was to the soft brown gaze of the selchie and the shadowed overhanging ceiling of the cave.

"I felt it," she said, her eyes shining, and she patted his chest. "I felt the moment that your life returned. You are truly a wonder, Nightwalker."

Sliding back, Henry propped himself on his elbows, frowned and said, "A wonder, is not what I would name it."

"I have come to bid you farewell and to offer you my thanks," the selchie woman said with a smile. "This night I am returning to my home."

At the reminder of the fisherman's blood, the vampyre's eyes darkened to black and the tips of his fangs protruded. He bowed his head and then looked up to regard her from under his brow.

"There is no debt between us...Selchie," the Fledgling said slowly. "You helped me and protected me, when you did not need to do so. In return I helped you to find your skin, now you are free."

The selchie nodded solemnly and then she said suddenly, "My name is Rona."

The vampyre was taken aback, he had heard that the gifting of one's name was said to be important among the others.

"My name is Henry," he replied, "Henry...Fitzroy."

***

He stood by, on the rocks and watched as Rona shed her clothing, until she stood shimmering pale in the cold moonlight. She smiled as she shook out the bundled skin and drew it shawl-like around her shoulders.

The ocean breathed out a long sigh, foaming up to the shore.

She nodded once to Henry, her eyes shining, and then her outline blurred and softened in the vampyre's eyes, re-solidifying as the sleek and spotted form of a grey seal.

Henry stepped forward to lay a hand flat against the smooth pelt. The seal turned her head to regard him with Rona's eyes, peat brown and full of mystery and compassion.

Then she slipped into the sea, and was gone.

***

Henry focused on the deep brown eyes of the Selchie male, who hung in the water in front of him under a rainy Vancouver sky.

"This is MY territory," Henry said implacably. The selchie nodded, and though his form wavered, he remained human, pale limbs visible, treading in the water. He kept eyes that were as solidly brown as were the vampire's black, trained on the nightwalker.

"You are not prey, yet you offer me no challenge," Henry continued.

"I mean you no challenge," the selchie nodded his agreement.

"Then I offer you and yours, my protection and sanctuary within my territory. I do this in remembrance of a kindness done me long ago, by one of your kind," Henry said, the prince, even kneeling at the edge of a pool in the rainy dark.

The Selchie male inclined his head, gratefully. "I thank you Nightwalker," he said, "you honor us."

His outline blurred and smoothly his seal form slipped away across the pool.


	23. Chapter 23

"Well if you ask me Stan, Galen was up to something, and you know what? I don't like it much" The voice floated querulously out onto the night air, through the opening door.

Vicki's eyes lost track of Henry's location as one moment he was a dim shape crouched at the side of the pool and the next instant he was gone.

The door opened wider, casting a wedge of blue-white florescent light out across the concrete and two men emerged into the pool yard.

Stan responded to the stocky short man at his side, "What can Orion be up to? He doesn't know anything about our operation, which pisses me off royally. I mean...you'd think that being what he is, he would hate the bastards." Stan turned to his companion with a look of disgust on his face, as he dug in his jeans pocket.

"I'm telling you Corey, when I felt him out a little bit…you know suggesting that maybe someone should take revenge on the bad asses that are profiting from the hunt, he acted all shocked and shut me down pretty quick. '_Shepherds of the Seals'_ my ass! If he suspects anything, well he'll keep quiet. All we have to do is tell him that we'll let his little _wifey_ know where he is, and he'll disappear back into the ocean and never come out."

"Yeah, well he sure hared off pretty quick, when that lady cop showed up and started chasing him. I wonder what the hell she wanted with him," Corey said as Stan finally pulled his car keys, jangling, from his pocket.

Vicki jumped and barely stifled an undignified squeak as cool fingers closed on her shoulder and she felt Henry's breath brush her skin as he whispered in her ear, "We need to move to the other side of the building, they're coming this way."

She started to rise and cursed her failing vision for the thousandth time as she was forced to grasp Henry's forearm as he guided her soundlessly through the dark.

He drew her in close to his body so that their hips touched and through the gentle nuances of the pressure on her arm and hip instructed her silently on where to place her feet and how to hold her body, in the same way as a dancer leads his partner. Though his assistance was gentle and unobtrusive, Vicki hated it, as she hated all reminders of her disability. When they came to a halt, deeper in the shadows, Vicki dropped Henry's supporting arm and tried to focus her eyes on the silhouettes of the two men walking away toward the Aquarium proper.

She could still hear their voices in the wet air.

"And he never showed up to meet Ben when he took the rescue truck back to the Island," Corey continued, "so maybe he was so scared he just swam...all the way home," he said with a snicker.

"This way: the car is parked at the loading dock off the Gift Shop. Man, I can't wait to get out of this rain. I feel like I haven't been warm all day," Stan said.

"I know what you mean..." the voices faded out of the range of Vicki's hearing.

She turned her face to Henry and watched as he continued to listen for another minute or two, his eyes unfocused and his head cocked slightly to one side. Eventually he swiveled his head around and regarding the pool where it lay silvered in the moonlight, he said for her benefit, "They had nothing more of interest to say, and I couldn't hear them after they started the engine of their car. The remaining human inside, is at rest. He is reading, but I think he is preparing to sleep."

"What are you a fucking mind reader?" she groused, disgruntled at the display of his extra abilities.

"No, Vicki," he replied in a resigned voice, "But I am Vampire. I can hear him turning the pages of his book, and I can hear his heart beat and breathing slowing down as sleep approaches."

After a moment he continued, "Do you wish to go inside?"

"No, I'll be here tomorrow morning for a meeting anyways, so I'll get a look around then," Vicki said. "Did you see what you wanted or do you want to…sniff around some more?"

If she expected the usual rejoinder from Henry she was disappointed. His eyes were distant with memory as he stared across at the pool. She had the feeling he might have stood for hours locked in that far away place.

"Hey, are we going or what?" she said at last. His attention returned to her and he held out an arm indicating that she should precede him. She resolutely started out across the dark pavement only to misstep at the edge. She nearly went down but for Henry's arm on her elbow in sudden support.

As soon as she was steady Henry dropped his hand away, thereby depriving her of the opportunity to wrench it rudely out of his grasp.

He swept past her, "This way," he murmured as he led the way back to the car.

He opened the passenger door for her and stood to one side waiting for her to enter, his face so remote and pensive that she didn't voice any complaint. She could sense this was not the time for games between them.

When he was behind the wheel and she was belted in he put the key in the ignition. Vicki put her hand over his before he turned it. He stiffened at her touch though he did not pull his hand away.

"Henry, what is it, what's wrong?" She asked in a low voice. "Ever since you talked to that seal guy, you've been so distant, what did he say that upset you?"

Henry sighed and focused his gaze out the windshield of the car, it had started to rain again and the drops fell spreading in wide circles on the glass in front of his eyes. The verdant dark of the park surrounded him and Vicki; his Vicki sat golden not more than a few inches away.

He was filled with hunger, the ever present hunger for blood, the hunger for love that was denied, the hunger for acceptance that was denied, the hunger for kinship and family gone to dust, the hunger for the past so long gone to memory. The living scents of the sea and the selchie that past drifted to him in the night air brought the ghosts of his earliest loves to haunt him and they crowded about him in his memory. They had all passed by with the years leaving him here in this place, hungry for what he could not have.

His hand slipped from under Vicki's to close around the silver cross that he wore on his chest and he fingered it gently for a moment and then slowly brought it to his lips in memory.

_She will not understand, even if I try to explain it, she has nothing to measure by. How can I tell her and have her understand the hunger for people and things which are now dust. How can she understand that sometimes when the memories press so close that I can't keep them away, that I lose the present, I lose today in the hunger for yesterday? She will not understand._

"I need to feed. I hunger," was what he said in the end, as he half turned in his seat towards her.

He steeled himself for some barbed comment about "playing with his food" or "all night take out." What she said surprised him.

"What are you hungry for Henry? What did the seal-man say? Tell me."

"Selchie," Henry said softly, "they're called Selchies"

She waited asthe rain splashed against the windshield, watching him struggle for words to explain. Her heart was torn. Henry was different, there was something wrong, and she feared Celluci was right; she had caused some injury to him.

"The Selchie said nothing wrong Vicki. The Selchies, they are part of some very old memories for me." he said at last, though he did not turn to look at her.

"How old, is very old Henry?" Vicki asked.

Still he did not look at her but dropped his eyes to his lap. He shook his head slightly from side to side. "This path takes me back to when I was first made, Vicki, back to a place so deeply buried; I had thought not ever to resurrect those memories."

"And you don't want to be hungry for something you can never have again?" she asked him softly.

He turned his face to her, surprised. "I didn't think you would understand," he admitted.

"I can't understand what you don't explain to me Henry," she said more firmly. "You have so many secrets, so many things about your life that you won't share. Don't you trust me?" she asked.

"Should I, Vicki?" he asked her, his eyes hardening and a sour smile twisting his expressive lips. "The little you do know frightened you so badly that you rejected me out of hand. You would not leave Toronto with me and chose Celluci instead over the abomination that I am. And when you told me you were not with Celluci I rejoiced until it became clear that I had not lost you to a rival. You would rather be alone than to be...with me."

Vicki caught her breath; here then was the cost, the price that Henry had paid, for his involvement with her. This then was the price of her haughty silence, the price of her fear.

She had kept silent out of fear and Henry had sensed that, but had misunderstood the cause. She didn't fear what she knew about Henry at all. Some things she didn't like, some things were dangerous, but she didn't fear those things. She feared the mystery, even as she was attracted by it. She feared what she didn't know, and worse, she feared that she wouldn't be able to ask of him what she needed.

"I'm not frightened of what I know Henry, but like most people I am frightened of what I don't know." She met his troubled eyes, catching and holding his gaze. "There is nothing I know of you that I fear, Henry Fitzroy, but, with the exception of what happened with Mendoza, I have only ever seen the little that you have been willing to show me."

"You should forget what you saw in that church basement Victoria, it is not a part of me that I wanted you to see, it is not a part of me that I wanted anyone to see." He looked way again to the droplets running down the window behind her. He could see the flush of the blood below her skin, the soft glow of gold from the exposed areas of face, neck and hands.

The hunger roused once more and he thrust it aside impatiently; even as he did he knew he would have to hunt tonight.

"That's just it Henry," she said. "You want me to choose you...to l-love you." His gaze swung hard towards her, sharp focused on her face at her words. "But you refuse to show me who you are, and then you want to tell me that...I don't trust you."

The vampire knew there was a hole in her logic somewhere; she rejected him, not the other way around. _He wanted her, she was in his territory, and she was HIS. Yet she did not want him. But her scent, her scent said otherwise._ He turned his head away and ran his hands through his hair.

"I need to feed," his voice was neutral; then he added, "I will drop you at your hotel," as he turned over the engine.

"No," she said.

"Pardon me?" Henry questioned.

"You heard me Henry; I said 'no!' You are not going to drop me at my hotel, and then run off and DO your vampire thing in secret," Vicki said as calmly as she could.

"Vicki, I haven't fed for two nights now," he said, his voice resigned, "I'm hungry and I need to take sustenance. Are you telling me that you don't want me to feed?"

"No Henry, I'm telling you that I'm coming with you. No more secrets." _There, I said it, _she thought_._

Henry shook his head. "Not possible."

"Why not?" she challenged, "Are you ashamed of what you are Henry, are you ashamed of what you d..."

She stopped short, as Henry was suddenly on her, pushing her up against the window, his face but a few inches from hers. His eyes were a brilliant blue, glowing in the light from the streetlamp behind her.

"I am NOT ashamed of what I am." His whisper relayed more force that a shout would have.

For a moment Vicki was carried back to earlier in the evening when he had held her pressed against the wall, when she couldn't breathe...she swallowed once and the in a voice that shook only a little replied, "Then prove it."


	24. Chapter 24

Henry withdrew from her suddenly, and slamming the car into reverse, gunned the engine, swinging backwards in a sliding turn, savagely steering against the drift of the back wheels on the wet pavement.

_Yeah like getting a ticket or ending up in the ditch is going to help,_ she thought, though she wisely, _for once_, kept the comment to herself.

By the time he had reached the entrance of the park, Henry had regained some of his composure. Anger was dangerous to him now, when the hunger for blood pressed against his control and pounded in his temples. Anger was a distraction he could not afford. He knew he was being childish, but her words rankled. _I am not ashamed of what I am,_ he thought, as he brought the car to a halt at a stoplight.

Her words troubled him, and he ran his hands up and down reflexively on the steering wheel as he worried at the suspicion she had raised in his mind.

_She says she cannot love me because she does not know me, but if she knows, truly knows what I am then she will reject my nature, as do they all, whomever I reveal myself to. I want her to trust me, to love me, to accept me. I want her to share her brief life with me, yet she demands that I do not shelter her from my reality. Is she right? Is she right that I don't trust her?_

The thoughts spun in his head even as the hunger clawed at him. Her presence so close after he had been so long denied filled him with a thrumming tension.

The light changed and he put the Jag in gear and started up Georgia Street. The rain was falling again steadily and the streets deserted except for the occasional car or cab. _He had to decide_.

Vicki wanted to glance at Henry, but she knew that any movement on her part would draw his attention to her, and she wanted to give him time to consider what she was asking. So she stared straight ahead out the windshield at the rain, which was falling more heavily now. She could sense from where she sat the tension in his body. While he considered, he kept up a low growling in his throat that he did not appear to be aware of, but it set Vicki on edge.

_She cannot love me because she does not know me, and she cannot love the masquerade, not Vicki, not my Vicki. It was foolish to think that that shallow persona would satisfy her. I have hidden myself from all but a handful in 500 years; it is an instinct for self-preservation. I am not sure I can overcome that instinct and let her that close to me. If I show her what I truly am she will reject me, and if I refuse, she will reject me…there is no choice, if I wish to have her with me._

"You will promise me, to do exactly as I say; you will make no sound and interfere in no way. You will not resist me, or any request I make of you," he said suddenly, his voice a snarl at the corner he felt himself backed into. "Can you promise this?" he demanded.

He turned off to drive along Water Street through Gastown, glancing at her for affirmation.

"This flies in the face of every instinct I have Vicki, to take any but a Childe of my own with me on the hunt. You ask a great deal of me," he rasped. "Do you promise?"

Vicki nodded, suddenly struck by the enormity of what she was undertaking.

"Say it Vicki, in conscience, I need your oath." He persisted.

"I will do exactly as you say. I will keep quiet and will not interfere. I will not resist you in anyway. I promise you," she said seriously. _If he is willing to make this concession for me, I can't balk at his terms._

_*** _

Henry had parked the car against the curb three blocks down across the street from the Gospel Mission.

"Remember your promise," he said as he turned to her. "Stay with me but stay back, and DON'T interfere." There was a feral heat in his blue gaze that Vicki had never seen before, but that her every instinct recognized. She nodded, her throat suddenly dry.

He opened his door and went immediately to a very large transvestite hooker who lounged against a chain link fence in a short sequined dress and heels so high that Vicki could see the calf muscles corded with strain on the smooth shaved legs. The tiny, pink poodle design umbrella the hooker held over her head was hardly adequate to keep the rain off the broad shoulders.

As Vicki opened her door she heard the sultry tone as the whore purred in a voice too low to have ever passed female lips, "Henry, I haven't seen you round here for a while, are you looking for a little..."

Henry took the large carefully manicured hand in his own pale fingers and lifted it so that his lips brushed the back of the knuckles. "Cassandra," he purred in a voice so full of seduction that she pulled away from the fence and tottered closer to him, towering over the smaller man. The teased blond wig framed a face heavy with makeup, the eyes dark and rapt behind curled false lashes. Her red lips parted and she breathed, "we could have a...gooood time...Henry."

Vicky slammed the car door and turned, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets, leaning her hips against the car. She wanted to clear her throat to remind Henry of her presence, but mindful of her recent promise she quashed that urge, settling instead for removing her glasses and vigorously cleaning them on the edge of her shirt. Henry ignored her.

"As tempting as the offer is Cassandra," Henry said regretfully, "I have something else in mind tonight." He pulled his money clip from his pocket and peeled out a red tinged fifty-dollar bill. He deftly folded it between his fingers and tucked it between the silicon cleavage. "Keep an eye on my car, Cassie, please? I won't be long."

Cassandra's face lit with a brilliant smile, the effect only slightly spoiled by the lipstick on her teeth. "That's all I gotta do, just watch the car?" Henry nodded as he turned away. He started off down the sidewalk along Cordova at a brisk pace; he neither spoke to Vicki nor turned to see if she was following.

Frowning, Vicki pushed herself off the car and hurried after his retreating outline, nodding brusquely to "Cassandra" as she passed. _So he wants to play it like that does he?_ she thought.

The street was lined with businesses that were dark and secured with metal gates and grills. Every parking lot was fenced with chain link and locked gates, the forbidding coils of razor wire crowning the top of these barriers. Henry paused at the corner of Hawks Street, his face a pale oval haloed by damp curls, and he turned the collar of his woolen jacket up against the damp. As Vicki came up alongside him she saw him narrow his eyes as he looked back up the street.

Two blocks back the light had changed green and even at almost two in the morning the white headlights of the one-way traffic streamed towards them along the wet surface of the road.

Henry stepped back instinctively, putting out his arm to push Vicki back as well. Then she saw him turn his head away to protect his eyes from the glare. She did the same in an effort to maintain whatever night vision remained to her.

For a moment her ears were full of the sounds of engines and the hissing rumble of tires on the wet road spinning water up into the air. There was the sound of rumbling bass from cranked speakers that hung in the air even as the other sounds faded. Her nose registered the smell of the wet interwoven with the familiar oily tang of car exhaust. She could feel Henry's fingers curled around her forearm. As the last of the red taillights disappeared around the downhill curve of the road, Henry released her arm and without a word stepped out across the now empty road.

The emaciated redhead on the corner under the streetlight, straightened hopefully when Henry passed. He shook his head and she lapsed back into a slack hipped stance, her face already blank again under her bedraggled hair as Vicki passed by close on Henry's heels. Half a block along Henry paused at the opening of the laneway behind the Astoria Hotel. A decrepit eight story brick building that housed a bar on the lower floor and then floors of flop house rooms that rented by the hour, day, week, and month or however long was required. The Astoria was a suppurating wound on the body of Vancouver; whatever one wanted, one could purchase it at the Astoria.

From the mouth of the alley Vicki could see the cool flickering blue of the small neon BAR sign over the metal fire door.

The alley was narrow and dark, its margins lined with the litter of everyday life, and the living litter of humanity. The brick walls with their security grilled windows and their defiant aerosol-sprayed tattoos, leaned as a meager shelter over those who had journeyed here. The filthy asphalt floor was wet and puddled in the rainy night, a night only held barely at bay by the oily light cast by the lampposts at either end, where the laneway opened out to side streets as noisome as the alley itself.

Overhead the net of electrical wires hummed with a mindless energy dissipating into the moist air, and high above, overlooking all, a transformer hung bolted to a leaning pole, hissing and crackling softly in the rain. For blocks along the alleys that ran between West Hastings and East Cordova streets this scene repeated itself again and again with a dreadful and pitiful regularity.

This was the_ other _nightlife of Vancouver, _beautiful Vancouver_, the city by the sea. This was the playground of those for whom the day was but a dim memory: the junkies, drunks, drug dealers, the homeless, the abandoned, the deviants and whores. The drugged detritus of Vancouver, worn away from the main mass of society by circumstance, or ill luck, or weakness, to lie as rubble, ground down and forgotten in the alleyways of Strathcona.

The day was the time of drug induced oblivion, the evening a time of writhing and battling to gain the solace of whatever it was that allowed you to endure one more night spent alone in covert combat among your peers. Life held on a knife's edge in the world of the streets. This was the _other_ nightlife of Vancouver, the wreckage of humanity. It was here that the vampire came to hunt.

Henry pulled at the lapels of his coat, settling it on his shoulders, and as he passed under the street lamp Vicki could see that his hair was netted with droplets of water that caught and refracted the light like faceted jewels.

Vicki's attention was drawn to a derelict, passed out drunk, lying boneless, propped against the overflowing dumpster in the weed choked margin of the parking lot. _At least, she thought he was drunk,_ and she moved closer to check, _he was so still, maybe he was..._with a sudden snort, he opened slitted and bloodshot eyes, blinking, then mumbled something unintelligible under his breath, and tipped further sideways, to lie prone on the ground, the rain falling to pool in the sockets of his closed eyes. She looked up when she heard the sensuous music of Henry's voice.

He stood close to the bar door in front of three shivering hookers, who were clad in the briefest of garments and huddled sheltering under a crooked metal awning. Water ran in a steady and sparkling stream from one corner of the awning to spatter noisily on the pavement at their feet.

The one who stepped forward to run a hand down his arm in invitation was wearing a short plaid skirt and a tight white man-style shirt unbuttoned to her waist, the inside contours of her breasts and half her nipples visible where the shirt gaped open. She was wearing white knee-socks and Mary Janes and her hair was pulled up in two long tails on either side of her head.

Though she was perhaps twenty-four, the image she presented was disturbingly like a schoolgirl. The attempt at the wholesome image was ruined by the clusters of scabbed sores that covered the wall of her chest and the backs of her hand. Her eyes were dilated hugely though her lids were half closed in a sleepy lethargic expression.

"Hey honey," she purred. "Are you lookin' for a date? Only twenty to_ do_ you handsome, course if it's the two of you...well that would cost more," she said, sparing a glance in Vicki's direction.

"I'm looking for Jared," Henry said. Vicki could see he was tense under the whore's touch, but his voice remained neutral and he did not pull away.

"Hell...you ain't gonna find that sorry-assed pimp standin' out here in the wet," an older woman chuckled from where she sheltered under the metal. Her leopard print jumpsuit hugged a slim frame topped by huge breasts. Her face was hollow-cheeked and bore testament to a life of excesses. There was a large blue bruise that circled one of her eyes and crept, yellowing, down her jaw line.

"Jay, he's upstairs, in room 605, dry as a fuckin' bone! Poor boy's been sick, doctor says he's a-neem-ic or some such shit." She began to cough in a throaty whooping wheeze; after a moment she caught her breath, and wiping a hand across her mouth continued, "He's dealin' some good stuff though, honey. If you goes and gets some, then come on back down...you and me can have a real good time, sweet cheeks."

Henry nodded once and then turned and pulled open the door, passing through a short hallway. Vicki followed close behind. Though Henry looked neither to the left or right Vicki turned as they passed an open archway that led out to the bar. Smoke hung in a heavy layer in the room and the stained tables and cracked vinyl chair seats were still occupied by the inebriated or those who prey upon them.

Outside of her blurry field of vision she heard slurred voices rise in a sudden argument and the sound of a chair overturned. Then she was past, and at the end of the hall where Henry had started up the stairs.

He glanced back at her once, his face impassive, his eyes turbulent with what she recognized as anger and hunger. But he said nothing and so neither did Vicki.

He moved so quickly up the flights of stairs, never stopping on any of the landings, that her heart had begun to pound by the time they entered the stale, rancid length of the sixth floor hallway.

The air was full of the sounds of voices and somewhere at close range, a radio playing loudly. The walls were stained and covered with tags and graffiti; the smell of stale urine and greasy food and moldy damp was pervasive.

Henry eased along the hallway to a door that had the number 605 spray painted over the chipped and cracking surface. The music of the radio was coming from inside that room. Henry curled his fingers around the door handle and pushed. It did not seem to be a strenuous exercise on his part, but the door burst open, the lock and dead bolt falling to the floor.

The tall and thin man in khakis and a white undershirt, who had been seated at the table weighing out baggies of coke, shot upright, "What the fuck?" then relaxed visibly as he saw Henry slip through the door. "Oh, it's you," he said, in a strange flat voice. He seemed unaware of Vicki's presence, all his attention fixed on Henry.

Henry replied in a provocative tone, "Yes, Jared, it's time for our...meeting."


	25. Chapter 25

Jared shambled away from the table and over to stand in front of Henry, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. His posture was relaxed though his hands shook slightly. There was a pulsing tic, under his right eye.

"There's a good man," Henry stated his approval in a voice dripping with sarcasm. He turned and looked over his shoulder to Vicki, "Close the door."

Vicki did as he asked, standing with her arms folded across her chest and her back against the door.

Henry pulled a chair into the open space in the middle of the room and indicated to Jared with an elegant wave of the hand that he wished him to sit. Jared moved woodenly forward as though his limbs were not quite under his control and lowered himself into the chair. Vicki could see that his complexion under the overhead bulb was as paper white as Henry's. There were deep blue shadows under the pale eyes that darted from side to side.

Henry began to circle Jared's chair, his hands clasped behind his back, and as he moved, Jared swiveled his head to keep the dark clad figure in his view.

"I heard you have been to the doctor, Jared. What did he have to say? You seem just a trifle pale," Henry commented as he leaned forward to look in Jared's face.

The human's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he grasped the edge of the chair seat. But he answered calmly enough, "He told me I was severely anemic and he asked me how it happened."

"And what did you tell him?" Henry inquired mildly as he continued to circle the man seated on the chair.

Vicki could feel something building in the still air of the room. It started out as a prickling at the back of her neck and it grew until it was rolling over her skin like static electricity or eldritch fire; all of her hair was standing on end and gooseflesh ran up and down her arms. It was coming from Henry, she knew that, as he paced catlike in an ever-tightening circle. Vicki didn't know whether her instinct was to run, or draw closer.

"I told him that I get turned on by blood play, that I like to be cut," Jared whispered.

Henry paused behind the pimp's chair and laid a cool hand on Jared's trembling shoulder. He raised his face to Vicki and she saw. She saw the predator look back at her, strong and sure and in complete control of his prey. Henry's black gaze held hers with a laser focus. His expression was benign as he said past the ivory fangs of his kind, "And do you engage in blood play, Jared?" He asked this as he lowered his face to the same level as the male's, to speak softly in his ear, though his eyes never left Vicki's.

Jared turned his terrified face to Henry's and whispered, "Only with you…"

***

_She followed, her scent floating around him with her proximity. There was the tang of fear to her signature fragrance, but overall there was the coloration of excitement. Will I regret this? She says she wants to know, but…I am not even sure I can do this; her presence so close to hand is…distracting. I am not sure that she can do this, for all her admirable strengths and qualities; she is one of 'them' after all. Perhaps she will take their side…her side…_ He shook his head to dispel his doubts, his course was decided and no amount of second guessing would help him now.

Henry carried on an inner dialogue as he moved swiftly down to the corner. He neither looked nor spoke to her, yet she remained occupying a portion of his attention, though even she was being slowly edged out by the need for sustenance. The insistence of the heartbeats surrounding him was intruding on his senses; it was symptomatic of his need. He could no longer shut out the rhythmic indication of the life all around him.

At the corner he halted, falling back a pace, waiting for the approaching traffic. As the brilliant headlights drew near he turned his head away, reaching out a hand instinctively to pull Vicki back as well into the safety of the darkness…as though she were a…_Childe?_

He crossed Cordova and headed up Hawks to the laneway behind the Astoria. He could sense his _marked_ one, near. His anger and need compelled him forward to seek out the satisfaction and validation of retribution…_she wants to know what I am, let her see how I care for my territory._

He endured the whore's touch on his arm as he made his inquiry, no need to search when '_his_ _women'_ would provide an exact location.

Room 605, the _marked one_ was above him, close at hand. The humans in the vicinity were now nothing but glowing shapes that pulsed with their life force; his hunger robbed them of their individual identities…as all became prey. But his need had a focus now and a name. He opened the steel door and moved towards the stairs; he could feel his _Chosen_ at his back, his shadow. He was able through force of will to glance back once to see her on the stair below him. He did not speak as the hunt had already claimed him. His prey was close by.

The flimsy door of the room proved no barrier, and he was through in a moment, the scent of the _marked_ one sending the hunger into a final upward spiral. He spoke though he did not heed the words, as he manipulated his prey through compulsion. When his _Chosen_ stood in front of the closed door and his prey was seated compliant and terrified in front of him, he paused, though his mouth was full of saliva at the waves of fear that emanated from the human in his grasp.

_This is what she wants to know; this is what she needs to see, _he thought_, _as he watched Vicki at the door. Even _her_ face, was blurred in the golden nimbus of enticing light that surrounded her.

He trained his attention on her, bringing his '_Chosen_' into focus.

"Come closer, _Chosen,_" he said, using the archaic terminology of his kind, without thought.

"Come closer, Vicki, let me show you." There was no compulsion in his voice, and his tone was gentle, mild.

****

Vicki started forward, her normal bravado evaporated in the swelling power that echoed in the room. She said nothing, because she had no idea what to say. Jared sat terrified and completely docile as she approached close enough to touch Henry where he stood behind him.

Henry's long-fingered hands eased aside the neckline of Jared's shirt until it was spread to his shoulders, exposing his throat.

Vicki could see the long lines of scars on either side of Jared's neck and shoulders, evenly and precisely spaced, the evidence of Henry's bites forming a bizarrely beautiful raised decoration of the pale skin. She thought there may have been as many as a dozen sets of scars.

"Are you draining him?" she finally asked, as she watched Henry tilt Jared's head to the side, stretching out the line of his throat. The human male was trembling violently now, his eyes closed.

"Mmmhuh…" Henry managed to mumble as he positioned his fangs over the trembling flesh, the pulsing river that flowed beneath the surface was all to him now.

As slow and as purposeful as his movements had been up until this point, Vicki was caught off guard at the sudden violence as Henry's arm swept out and around Jared's chest, under his ribs faster than she could see, pulling him up out of the chair, lifting him into Henry's embrace and driving the flesh of Jared's shoulder up into Henry's waiting mouth.

She fell back a step as she watched Henry lock his lips onto the other man's shoulder as he dangled helpless in the vampire's grasp. Jared managed a choked whisper, "Please…oh please…" even as he leaned his head further to the side, granting Henry unobstructed access.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that she should be appalled at what she was witnessing, yet as her eyes flew to Henry's face and she witnessed his beatific expression as he began to suckle, she felt, she felt…_some admiration, or relief, or satisfaction_…

She leaned closer, there was no blood, Henry was fastidious, and not a drop escaped him. She listened to the soft sounds of pleasure Henry made as his throat worked.

Jared had grown quiet in his arms, sagging against the vampire's chest after a few minutes. Henry's hair had fallen over his eyes, and as Vicki reached out a hand to brush the curls back, Henry opened black eyes at her touch.

He withdrew his fangs slowly and Vicki watched the blood well up in the four puncture wounds, four expanding drops which eventually lost form and began to trickle slowly down over Jared's clavicle to soak into the edge of his undershirt.

His voice brought her back from her reverie, "Do you wish to taste as well?"

She should have been revolted by the question but for a moment she considered the idea, _did she?_ "Not this time," she managed after a moment. Henry nodded cocking his head to the side, and then he lowered Jared to the chair again, where he sat limply, his chin resting on his chest.

Henry passed his hand across his lips, closing his eyes. When he opened them again they were a clear cerulean blue. He started towards the door and when he was in the hall and Vicki had passed him by, he checked that his compulsions were in place and then said to the human, "Jared," when the chalky face was raised to his he continued, "…until next time."

***

Henry started down the narrow stair and had reached the third floor landing, Vicki following close behind him, when he stopped so suddenly that Vicky ran into his solid back. He lifted his chin swiveling his head to stare down the hall.

Shaken out of her silence Vicki asked, "What is it?"

"Blood," Henry replied, "A great deal of blood."

He moved carefully down the hallway, to the third door. He paused outside, his head to the side, listening, a puzzled frown on his face.

Vicky watched as the frown was suddenly replaced by a look of horror. The recent flush that had come to his cheeks, drained entirely away in an instant.

"Henry what is it?" she asked, but he had already burst through the door into the darkened room beyond.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God…" his voice was choked as he glimpsed the pitiable scene in front of him. Vicki came up behind him as he lunged forward to his knees, and for a moment stood transfixed in horror.

On a filthy mattress in front of her lay the body of a young woman. Her face was calm, turned to the side in quiet repose.

She wore only a dirty T-shirt, her thin arms upturned and the smooth skin covered by a snaking trail of needle tracks.

It wasn't the perfect stillness with which she lay that told Vicki she was dead, but the large pool of bright red blood that had soaked into the mattress between her outspread legs.

In spite of all her years on the force, Vicki's gorge rose as she saw the tiny form of a newborn babe lying in the red, spreading stain, still attached to the twisted umbilicus that disappeared behind the corpse's thigh.

Henry was on his knees in a moment at the end of the bed and gathered the infant up into his arms; there was no crying and no movement.

He turned white faced to Vicki, "The heart falters, and he is very weak," he said, as much to himself as to her, "but there is still life."

Vicki knelt beside him and ran a hand through her hair, _what to do...what to do?_

___"_Give him to me Henry,_"_ she said, "and then call 911."

Even as she said it though, she knew as she looked at the tiny being's blue-tinged skin under the smears of blood that it would take too long. She held out her arms anyways.

Henry rolled the baby up higher in one arm and snarled at her. His eyes were once again as black as the night sky and his fangs had fallen. The very air around him began to vibrate with a sense of urgency that seemed to sink into Vicki's bones…and she suddenly realized that the vampire was…afraid.

"Henry! Wait! We need to tie it off first," she said. She reached across and pulled the leather thong of his medallion over his head, pulled her knife from her pocket and cut the thong into two lengths. Quickly slipping the medallion into her pocket, she tied two knots a few inches apart along the cord and she used the knife to slowly saw through the resilient tissue between the knots.

When the babe was finally separated from its mother Henry scooted back away, across the floor, holding the tiny infant against his chest. His flesh was warmer having so recently fed, but he cursed inwardly that he didn't have the human body heat that the child needed.

Vicki looked for something to wrap the child in but there was nothing remotely clean in sight.

After a moment she walked over to Henry where he sheltered the infant with his body. She held out her arms and said firmly, "We need to get him warm Henry. Give him to me and then take off your shirt; we need something to wrap him in."

Henry could hear the small heart faltering and the tiny lungs struggling to inflate. He could see the net of new life flickering over the chill flesh of the tiny body.

He handed the babe into Vicki's arms and stood to quickly strip off his coat and shirt. He spread the woolen coat out on the floor and then ripped the shirt up the middle to spread it over the open coat.

When he turned back to Vicki, she held the tiny body inside her jacket against her body. She supported the infant against her shoulder, her hand cupped behind the too large head.

The vampire knew that the heart beat was erratic now, too fast even for an infant, and the breathing was...somehow _wrong_.

"I will not allow this," he hissed in challenge to the night air that surrounded them. "I will not allow it!"

"Lay him down Victoria," he urged her. After a moment she laid the babe on the floor, watching with tears in her eyes as the small limbs grew limp...

The Vampire bent and covered the child's mouth and nose with his own mouth; he puffed soft little breaths into the tiny lungs. His artist's hands ran lightly up and down the tiny body as though he were attempting to transfer his own will to live to the infant.

Vicky watched, breathless, for a minute or more and then finally the tiny legs stirred and drew up to the body once again as the little hands clenched into fists.

Henry lifted his mouth away from the child's and wrapped him quickly in the shirt. He tossed his phone to Vicki and barked, "Call the preset number 17 and then when they answer…ask for Augustus, tell them you are calling for me!"

Wrapping his coat around the babe as well, Henry sat back and cradled the swaddled baby against his bare chest.

Vicki watched as Henry lifted his index finger to his own mouth. His fangs had run out and he bit down quickly on the end of his finger, bringing blood. She started forward as Henry gently worked his finger into the baby's mouth.

"What the hell are you doing?" she cried.

The baby began to weakly mouth at the tip of Henry's finger. Henry bent his head and the tip of his own tongue gently lapped the baby's cheek, encouraging the infant's reflex to suckle.

"It will not harm him Vicki," Henry said lowly. "He is weak and...diseased. His mother has passed her weakness to him. If he suckles a small amount of my blood, he will become stronger, he will heal. Do you not wish him to thrive? Will you please call Augustus?"

Henry removed his now healed fingertip from the child's mouth and sliced it against his fang again…wiggling it past the tiny lips once more...

Already the child began to suckle more strongly and his heartbeat began to even out. The net of new life firmed over the tiny features, clearly visible to Henry's eyes.

"Just a little more, poppet," he whispered.

"Can I speak with Augustus?" Vicki said, as she scuttled across to hold the phone to Henry's ear.

Twenty minutes later they descended the stairs to the laneway unnoticed and walked out to the corner of Hawk and Cordova.

While they had waited upstairs Vicki had watched Henry open his finger twice more to allow the child to take his blood.

If they were observed on the short walk to Cordova, no one remarked on the shirtless pale young man who held, a now squalling bundle, to his chest.

A short black limo was parked on the side of the road and as they approached, the rear door opened and a middle-aged woman emerged with a soft blanket in her arms. She waited until they drew up alongside her.

She smiled as she held out the blanket. "He is rather noisy isn't he?

Henry flashed an uncertain smile as he lifted the shirt-wrapped babe from his coat and laid him in the woman's outstretched arms.

"I am glad that Augustus sent you, Annie," Henry said. "I know that he will be in good hands."

His eyes returned briefly to the Astoria and Annie understood.

"Don't worry Henry, we'll take care of everything," she said as she propped the babe on her shoulder.

The infant began to whimper and nuzzle against her neck.

Henry said worriedly, "He hungers."

"We'll take care of everything Henry," Annie repeated, and she climbed back into the car holding the babe in her arms.

Before he closed the door, Vicki watched as Henry leaned in close and said in a solemn voice,

"Tell Augustus, that this babe has had my blood."

Annie's eyes met Henry's and widened slightly.

She nodded solemnly, "I'll tell him."


	26. Chapter 26

There was a subtle brightness that intruded on his slumber, a lightening beyond his closed lids that he really wanted to ignore.

_Why is it that the damn birds have to choose my window ledge to shout their challenge to the day,_ he thought? _And why does it feel as though whatever sort of a little beggar the damned bird is, that it is drilling a hole behind my eye with its frigging little beak?_

He rolled his head down and over into the pillow hoping that somehow a little pressure might stop the headache he felt looming. Pulling the blanket higher on his shoulder, he turned over in a vain effort to block the day. His nose brushed warm flesh at the same moment as his feet protruded uncomfortably out into the cool air of the room.

_Whaaa…?_ He cracked an eye open and realized that he _wasn't in Toronto any more_. His nose rested against Liath's forehead. He drew back to look down on her sleeping face. Her eyes were closed and her long brown lashes lay on cheeks that were dappled with the faint freckling of her coloring. Even in sleep her face bore a soft and sweet smile.

_Thank God,_ he thought, _thank God and all the Saints, she is real._

She was real, a warm and relaxed weight that he held safely in his arms. He hadn't dreamed her, hadn't imagined her. As he watched, the slight change in the way he held his body wakened her and her eyes fluttered open, deep brown and somnolent and she regarded him for a moment, then her face creased with a flash of white smile.

She sighed loudly and lowered her face to burrow up against his chest, wriggling 'til she was completely enfolded in his embrace and their legs were entwined. He tightened his arms around her and closed his eyes for few moments just breathing in her scent. He could still hear the birds outside the window but now their song seemed sweetly melodic.

Mike stroked down along her back gently, and in a voice that was slightly rough said, "Good morning."

"No, no…'tis not," Liath mumbled, burrowing more resolutely into his arms and disappearing into the dark below the blankets.

"But it is," Mike smiled, as he tightened his arms briefly and then lifted the blankets, to peer down onto the top of her head where she nestled against his chest. The cooler air of the room crept down onto her back and she moaned.

"No Michael, let's lie here for a wee bit more, just another half an hour, 'tis early yet."

"I have no idea of the time Liath but I need to…" He quickly lost the train of his thought as her warm hand traveled up the long muscle of his thigh, to cup the weight of his sex. She rolled him in her palm for a moment and then stretched out her thumb to tease the very tip of him with the slightest of touches.

It was Mike's turn to moan as he felt her face shift up and around and then her mouth latched soft and warm onto his nipple. He uttered a soft gasp at the intensity of his response to her ministrations. Then he relented breathlessly, "Maybe another half an hour wouldn't…uhh…hurt…"

***

When Mike emerged from the shower, his hair towel dried and his face bristled with a day's growth of beard, he followed the sound of voices to the kitchen.

Standing at the arched doorway to the room, he saw a blonde-headed woman leaning against the ancient countertop, and Liath seated with her legs drawn up on one on the kitchen chairs.

Mike placed the familiar blonde as being the driver of the car that had picked Liath up at the ferry dock and he flushed a little as he remembered the frank admiration in her appreciative smile.

As the blonde's eyes came up to regard him in the doorway, Liath looked over her shoulder and smiled her pleasure at him, a smile that set off an echo of pleasure in his own heart.

"Michael, this is Clare, my roommate. Clare this is Michael my...my…Michael," Liath said by way of introduction.

Clare's eyes widened as she took in his tall frame in the doorway and she said, "Ah Michael, well I am pleased to make your acquaintance, to be sure. Would you like some green tea?" She indicated a pot covered with a crocheted cozy that rested on the table in front of Liath's steaming mug, "or would you be a man more after my own heart and be wanting some coffee?" displaying her own mug.

"Coffee, please," Mike said as he crossed two paces to place his hands on Liath's shoulders. Liath raised a hand to cover his fingers with her own.

"Have a seat Michael," Clare said as she set a mug of black coffee on the table.

"I really should call a cab, I need to get back to my hotel, and get some clean clothes and check in with…"

Liath said, "Clare and I were just discussing that very thing. Why don't you sit down and have some coffee and then Clare will lend me her car to drive you back to where you're parked? I need to go to a rehearsal anyways this afternoon so I'll spend a bit of time downtown."

Mike sank into the chair and laced his fingers around the heat of the mug, wondering at the sense of relief that he didn't have to part from her just yet.

***

It had only just gone 9 a.m. by the time that Mike and Liath had settled her cases in the back seat of Clare's aging sedan. They set out along Dallas Road, and though the clouds were broken and scudding across the sky in the breeze, the day definitely held the moist promise of more rain.

As they passed by the Beacon Hill Park they could see out on the water a small schooner that was running before the wind setting out across the Strait. Mike turned his head to keep the ship in his sight.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" Liath asked him. "Have you ever sailed on a tall ship Michael?"

Mike shook his head, "No, I've been on my brother's sailboat out on the lake in summer, but never onboard anything as big as that, or on anything ocean going."

"Oh it's wonderful," Liath enthused. She made a right hand turn and started up past the park towards downtown. "When you're out in the open water and the sails are full of wind and she's speeding along with her wake white behind her. It's just exhilarating." She smiled and sat up straighter behind the wheel.

"Sounds like you've been on quite a few," Mike said.

"Yes well, I've been around ships and the sea most of my life," she said easily, "but I love the tall ship best of all. I once sailed aboard a schooner in a Tall Ships Race. We didn't have a chance of winning but it was terribly exciting all the same, and to truly use the shanties as they were intended was wonderful."

They were passing by the Inner Harbor now, in front of the Empress hotel and the early flocks of tourists.

"We parked one block over from the Times last night, didn't we?" she asked him.

He nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, it's the next right I think."

"So," Mike asked, "have you ever been out to the East Coast and sailed on the Atlantic or have you confined yourself to the Pacific?"

Liath's expression sobered as she pulled up behind Mike's rental car. She put the sedan in park and then turned in her seat towards him.

"Michael, you can ask me anything you want, I want to help you if I can." Her eyes were dark and suddenly haunted in her stricken face.

In a choked whisper she said, "I sailed to the protest on the ice once, on the Lila; it has to be four years ago now. I thought, I thought that I was prepared for the thing that is the hunt," she swallowed once thickly, "but I'll never forget the hunters on the floe and the..."

"Blood?" Mike supplied.

"Yes," there were tears in her eyes, "the blood of the whitecoats on the ice. I lost it, broke down completely. They had to air lift me back to the city and I was in hospital for three weeks." Her face was pinched with pain at the memory. Mike lifted a hand to her cheek, and wiped away a single trickling tear with his thumb.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up Liath," he breathed as he leaned in to brush her quivering lips with his.

She sighed gustily and said, "Oh, it's no matter, I just wish I was made of sterner stuff. I just don't know how Orion could stand to take and develop all those pictures."

Mike leaned his forehead against hers and said in a low voice, "I wish I didn't have to leave you like this."

Liath patted his hand. "Go on with you," she said with a tremulous smile. "I'm going to drive over to the Captain Cook Bakery and console myself with a decadent cream cheese Danish and an extra large latte. I have your phone number; will it be alright if I call you?"

"Any time," Mike said as he climbed out the passenger side door, fishing for his keys in his coat pocket. "Any time...please."

***

By six that evening Mike was definitely feeling the late night and his over indulgence at the Times. He had spent most of the day in meetings and reviewing the files at the police station and had taken a long and fruitless drive out to the Sooke Aquatic Conservatory. Once there he had interviewed two rather surly young women who seemed to begrudge every word they said to him as though they were betraying a sacred trust.

Liath had called him once to ask him how his work was going and to let him know that after the rehearsal she was going to the Society offices with Becky to _overhaul_ one of the clinic's supply cupboards. He hadn't heard from her since.

He had thought about calling Vicki but had remembered that she said she was flying into Vancouver today with Coreen, and after the way he had left things with her, he really didn't want to go there just yet.

He had called down to Toronto though and to the Metro station. He got Dave on the phone who_, traitor that he was_, had passed him to Crowley over Mike's shouted protests.

Crowley had demanded a full report of what he _had_ so far and had kept him at least half an hour. _She can damn well pay my wireless bill,_ he thought bitterly at the end of the call.

Mike felt tired and worn and strangely unsettled as he left the station. Glancing at the steady downpour that darkened the early evening sky he thought morosely to himself, _perfect, just perfect._

He made his way to the hotel, pulling his coat up over his head and wrapping it around the files he held to his chest as he dashed the few steps from his car across the hotel parking lot and up the exterior stairs to his second floor room. He felt damp and cold and disheveled as let himself into the cool, dark room, flicking on a light here and there and pulling off his jacket to lay it over the chair to dry.

He checked his phone; there was one new voice mail. It was Liath; her voice was breathless as she said, "Mike, there is a rescue happening up the western coast of the island a bit, in Bamfield. I'm going to assist Becky, I'll call you when I can, love…bye."

_I'll call you when I can, love, when I can, love_…. The words seem to circle in his head_…was it? _he wondered. He had never felt this kind of bone deep longing for anyone else, not even Vicki, not even in the best part of their relationship, long before _fucking Fitzroy_ showed up and the whole world went straight to hell.

Trying to escape his troubling thoughts he picked up the yellow pages from the hotel dresser, and thumbing through them, he found a local Chinese restaurant and ordered a hot and sour soup and some lettuce wraps and two large Chinese teas for delivery, and then escaped into the steamy warmth of the shower.

***

The empty Chinese food containers still littered the room's table and Mike flicked off the TV. It was 10:30 p.m. and he had still heard nothing from Liath.

The room was bathed in the warm, dim light of the bedside lamp and suddenly quiet. Clad only his sweatpants, and barefooted, he crossed to the door. The skin of his arms and shoulders tightened in the chill air as he stepped out onto the second floor balcony. The rain was sheeting down as he stood regarding the half empty parking lot. The street in front of the hotel was deserted, puddled and dark in the rain. He felt curiously disturbed, troubled by a nagging sense of worry.

Shaking his head, he returned to his room and pulled back the bedclothes.

He glanced at the files spread open on the dresser and his notes resting amid the take out containers. He downed a swallow of the dregs of the cold tea, careful to leave the debris in the bottom of the paper cup.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he flicked off the light and laid his head on the pillow. The crisp linen was cool against his cheek and the last thing that he remembered hearing was the sound of the rain pounding on the hotel roof.


	27. Chapter 27

Mike jarred awake suddenly, torn roughly from a dream in which he was standing watching from the Seawall as Henry Fitzroy in full-blown vampire mode was wreaking death and destruction among the seal hunters assembled on Third Beach in Stanley Park...? The image evaporated as the pounding came again.

His eyes found the red numbers on the clock, 12:26 AM? He threw back the covers and crossed quickly to the door. He was about to look through the viewport when he heard her voice. "Michael? Michael…please, it's Liath. Michael?"

He scrabbled at the locks with suddenly awkward fingers and when he drew the door open he saw her standing drenched and bedraggled and sobbing on his doorstep.

"Michael...?"

He reached out and drew her, icy cold and wet against his bare skin, into his embrace. She was shivering and crying and he tightened his arms around her. "Shhh, shhh, I've got you, I've got you..."

He pulled her in through the door and kicked it closed with one foot. "Liath, what happened, what's wrong?" he asked urgently as he dropped his chin to the top of her head. He could smell the sea and the rain on her body where she shivered and sobbed against him.

He drew her further into the room and when he moved to put her away from him so he could look at her, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest, clinging limpet-like to his warmth.

"Has someone…hurt you Liath?" he asked. A terrible fear had begun to grow in his heart, something dreadful had happened while he was sleeping. He felt her shake her head no against his chest and he pulled her closer to him in his relief.

"We need to get you out of these wet clothes," he said as he heard her teeth chattering. He managed to set her gently away from him. She stood, forlorn and shivering in the middle of the floor. When he had flicked on the bedside light, her eyes were huge and dark in her dripping face.

"Dead," she whispered, "all dead."

"Who's dead?" he said more sharply than he intended as he took her by the shoulders, "Who is dead, Liath?"

"S-six seals, s-six of them shot by fishermen off Bamfield," she stuttered as the shivering started up again. "We couldn't save any of them, not even, not even…"

"Seals," he frowned and he couldn't help continuing, "just seals."

She spun away from his grasp, "No…yes seals, they're only seals," she cried in a voice full of tears. "I should never have come," she whispered as she took a step towards the door.

Mike was behind her in a moment and put his arms around her. The fire had gone out of her at his first touch and she slumped against him in despair.

"I'm sorry Liath, I'm sorry. I thought perhaps there had been an accident and that some of your friends had been hurt or killed," he said as he turned her around.

She stood unresisting as he pushed the coat from her shoulders and let it fall in a wet lump onto the floor. Her clothing was soaked beneath and she stood unresisting as he pulled her sweater up over her head, the wet t-shirt following. He briefly ran his hands up and down her arms, chaffing her chilled skin. He watched a small runnel of water slip down the skin of her chest to disappear beneath the lace of her bra. _Celluci, _he berated himself, _what kind of an asshole are you to be thinking about sex when she is so…._ He felt his desire for her stir to life.

"We need to get you warm," he said, stepping slightly away and gently herding her towards the bathroom.

He turned on the water and when the shower was running and the small room began to fill with steam he lifted her chin and looked directly into her haunted face. "Liath, will you be all right to do this yourself?"

She nodded slowly, and finally said, "Yes."

"All right then," he said, "I'll just be on the other side of the door. I'll find you something dry to put on. She nodded, and Mike slipped from the room pulling the door almost closed.

***

Liath leaned her head against the white tiles as the steam rose around her; she knew that Michael didn't understand.

_How could he?_ She asked herself, _you've never told him._ _He is human after all and to him, even though he might care intellectually, they were just seals, just…animals. What was it he had said?_ _'I thought perhaps that there had been an accident and that some of your friends had been killed.' Well the seals were her 'friends,' and more, they were hers to guard. They had been shot by human fishermen anxious to protect the profit of their catch, as though they couldn't spare a few fish to the seals._

But worse, far worse, Rory had been in seal form in the water, driving the seals from the nets, and the stupid humans had shot him as well. He had dragged himself out onto a rock shelf at the edge of a small island and a homeowner who had heard the rifles had come down to the shore and found three wounded seals hauled out on the rocks.

He had called the Society out to a rescue. When they had arrived, and clambered out onto the rocks in the rain, there was one surviving seal and one selchie in seal form, clinging to life.

Rory, Rory her young kinsman, come from the east as had she herself, as had Orion. Now he laid on the rocks, his chest a bloody ruin and one of his flippers gone completely.

Becky had knelt beside her, but she sent the bleak message with her eyes and her sharply indrawn breath, _no hope, Liath there is no hope._

Rory had watched her with his dark brown eyes and she had kept by him, running her hands over the spotted pelt. Rory, her little cousin, redheaded, freckled and gangly, he was no more than twenty-two. His shape never wavered; she knew that he wanted to die in his seal form.

He had watched her as his eyes slowly grew dim and clouded and his blood ran in the wash of the incoming tide. The heavens poured down endless tears as he slowly closed his eyes one last time.

_Just a seal_...Liath brought her hands up to cover her face and allowed her tears to come.

_***_

Mike paced up and down in the room; he wanted to do something to help her, something. He clenched his fists impotently. He heard the shower shut off and was across to the door of the bathroom in a few paces.

When the door eventually swung open, Liath emerged into the softer light of the room wrapped in a towel that she clutched above her breasts and her hair a long and tangled curtain. Though her skin was reddened by the heat of the water, Mike recognized the signs of shock and emotional trauma in her face and body language.

He was not quite sure what to say to her, but with head bowed she walked directly to him and into his arms. He held her to him for a moment and then coaxed her into allowing him to wrap her in the spare blanket from the closet. Then he moved her to sit on the floor with her back to his knees where he sat on the edge of rumpled bed.

Using only his fingers, and starting at the ends, he worked his way through her long hair in sections. He carefully eased out the tangles until he could move his fingers smoothly through the damp mass. As he worked he felt her relax by increments until finally her weight lay warm against his legs. He expertly divided the hair into sections and wove the sections into a braid that hung down her back.

All this he did in silence. When his hands finally stilled, she turned to look over her shoulder at him. "And where did a fine young policeman like yourself, learn to plait a woman's hair?" she asked with a ghost of a smile that didn't come close to touching her bottomless brown eyes.

His lips twitched slightly at the memory, "My _Nona_, my grandmother, used to force me to help her with my young cousins' hair, when we were getting ready for church. If I did a good job, she would give me a dime for each one I did," he said. "I've never forgotten how to do it."

She twisted in between his legs and allowed the blanket to fall from her shoulders. Her eyes were full of sorrow and burning with a fey desire. She looked directly into his worried face and said, "Take me to bed Michael, please. I need to feel love and life this night."

Michael lifted a hand to cup her jaw and pulled her up into his arms. When he pressed his lips to hers she opened her mouth beneath his kiss and she inhaled his own breath from his lungs directly into her body. It fired his blood and he twisted to lay her full length on the bed, his hands moving quickly to strip the damp towel away from her. She held his head between her hands as he took his pleasure of her breasts and in so doing, launched her on the path to forgetfulness.

Her palms slid down his back, dipping and rising against the muscled contours, and she whimpered aloud when her fingertips met the obstruction of the waist of his sweats.

"No," she moaned, reaching out her arms to him as he reared back away from her to divest himself of the garment.

His desire for her was evident in the pulsing hardness that had become the focus of his emotions. Flushed dark, silken and infused with his own life's blood he yearned towards her as she beckoned him, her arms spread wide.

"No, don't leave me for an instant, Michael," she groaned. Her need was so great that she thought only to be joined to that pulsing and vital life.

He crawled up the bed, nudging apart her thighs until he was lying between them and was touching the entrance to her body. He lowered his greater weight onto her and claimed her lips and again as his tongue sought hers, she drew his breath from him in a long inhalation. He felt her chest expand as his own life's breath filled her lungs.

Michael didn't need the message of her hands clawing at his buttocks to tell him what she wanted. He sensed the chilling emptiness of loss and pain within her heart. He knew on an instinctive level that she reached for him to fill that void, to batter way the specter of death with this re-affirmation of life.

No gentle and considerate lovemaking this, he slid his length into her in one long dry and tearing thrust, filling her suddenly and she still bucked downward to him as though she would draw him in further.

He covered her mouth with his and, with his probing tongue, silenced the hissing moan she made.

For a long moment she lay quiescent beneath him, and Michael stilled himself encased in that heated grip. She began to move beneath him, a circular gyration of her hips as she manipulated his length within her, seeking the balm of his touch against her most secret of places.

Her hands pulled him bruisingly towards her and only her sudden wet spasm caused her grip to loosen. He heard a portion of her pain and sorrow slip away in the sigh that escaped her.

As her hands loosed their grip he slipped slowly away from her and then returned, again and again with increasing ease and speed as she began to meet him with her own movements. Their rhythm became more and more urgent as they met together over and over as though they were trying to merge into a single being. He thought nothing of finesse or technique; he thought only to draw her closer and closer still. When his release took him in a maelstrom of sensation and as her cry of completion sounded in his ears, his arms tightened convulsively around her.

*****

The grey light of the dawn was still an hour off, when Mike's cell phone began to ring, buzzing and vibrating across the nightstand. Mike pulled Liath's body closer to his as he reached across her to pick up the phone.

"Michael?" her sleepy voice inquired.

"Shhh, it's just my phone, love," he said in response, groaning as his eyes focused on the small screen of the phone where he read Dave's cell number. _Shit,_ he thought, just_ what I needed,_ as his eyes found the clock, 5:26 a.m.

He flipped open the phone and said, "Do you have any idea of what time it is here Dave?"

"Rise and shine partner," he heard Dave's familiar wheeze on the other end of the connection. "There's been another drowning."

Mike threw back the covers and swung his legs to the edge of the bed. He ran his free hand through his hair and then scrubbed at his jaw.

"What, when did it happen, same as the others or…?"

Dave cut him off, "Kate and I just got back from the scene and I'm due in a briefing with Crowley. I am e-mailing the entire file over to you at the Greater Victoria Station…man, it's fuckin eerie, the same thing over and over again. This one is a small time Russian hood found in his bed in Brampton. Oh, and one other thing, one of the names on your POI list turned up dead; beaten and stabbed in a dumpster in an alley off Avenue Road. Ummm…"

Mike could hear the shuffling of paper as Dave rifled through his file for the name. He felt Liath shift on the bed and her hand came up to rest warm against his back. He swiveled his hips to turn his upper body and kiss her lips while he held the phone to his ear, waiting…

"Right, here it is, Caucasian male, twenty four, name Theodore Beaumont, also…listed as missing by his family in Victoria…Rajani has the body now, preliminary cause of death was a stab wound to the heart."

Mike ran his hand over his forehead, "Thanks Dave, look can you give Vicki a call for me and let her know what you have as well? She is working a case that is very close to this one."

"Man, Celluci, if Crowley finds out…Victory always did get results though…alright but you owe me, big time," Dave protested and conceded to his own logic all in the same wheezing exhalation.

"Thanks, partner, I'm on my way in now, how long before the files are transmitted?" Mike asked as he brushed his knuckles softly along Liath's jaw.

"Give me an hour, Mike," Dave said and then hung up.

Mike closed the phone and then rolled back into the bed to face Liath and gather her into his arms. She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

"You have to go," she said; it was a statement not a question.

"Uhh huh," Mike murmured against the top of her head. He drew in a breath, _he hated this, hated to hurt her when she was so fragile. _"Remember when you told me about Maxine Beaumont and how her son was missing after he went to Toronto…" he began.


	28. Chapter 28

Joseph Fletcher paced across his bedroom pulling tight the belt of his silk dressing gown. He swept back the blinds and could see the faintest lightening of the dawn over the slate grey water of the strait. The moon hung still high and bright in the pearly morning darkness.

"Damn it Matthews. How, in God's name, are they doing it?"

Matthews was taken aback. He had worked for Joseph Fletcher as bodyguard for more than five years now. He had never heard him swear once; neither would he permit his employees to swear in his presence. Matthews had heard that lecture many times. "It is common and boorish and reveals your base origins when you use the language of the streets. I wish to be surrounded by gentlemen."

The fact that he swore now as he paced up and down was a testament to just how much the early morning call had upset him.

Slight and dapper with a ramrod straight carriage and generous white hair, Joseph Fletcher appeared every inch the gentleman he portrayed himself to be. He was flawlessly groomed always and his hands soft and neatly manicured as though he never did more then read the society pages.

Matthews knew precisely what those hands were capable of and had often hidden the evidence of his employer's predilections. He had seen those cool grey eyes grow cold and icy and he knew he never wanted that gaze focused on him.

***

When the telephone had rung at just after 4 AM this morning, Matthews had left his customary post, outside of the bedroom door, to answer it. When he had understood the nature of the call, he had put them on hold and had ventured into the bedroom to awaken his employer. He was relieved to find him alone.

Mr. Fletcher had taken the call in the library, though he did not stay seated at his desk in the pool of light cast by the antique bronze tiffany lamp. He had placed the call on speaker phone and paced up and down in the long shadows of the room. Matthews had heard and didn't hear, the raised voices from where he stood, hands clasped, in front of the library door.

"Anatoli Sidorov was little more than a thug. That is not the point," Fletcher said. "How are these fucking tree-huggers, taking out our own people? I know that it's them; they make it clear with their posing of the bodies and from the method of execution. I am assuming that Anatoli was the same?"

"Yes," The voice on the other end of the call affirmed. "One of his juniors came up to his place, delivering a whore, and they found him sitting up in bed with his eyes wide open.

The kid was still gagging while he was telling me. He says that they touched him and he just tilted slowly to the side and a flood of water just gushed out of his mouth and nose."

Fletcher shivered slightly in his dressing gown and then consoled himself with the fact that his own security was inviolate. _No rag tag group of environmental terrorists would ever be able to lay a finger on him, _he thought as his Toronto counterpart continued.

"The Russians are definitely not happy. Sidorov was the connection to the Russian processing boats that take the seals off the ice. The market is lucrative and they are nervous about it."

"Nothing is going to change," Fletcher said flatly. "This is nothing but a minor inconvenience." He paused, with eyes narrowed, to drum his fingers against the desk top considering, and then resumed his pacing as he said, "Step up your actions against the various groups, especially the ones on the Saint Lawrence. If a few more of their members start ending up dead, well, they may get the message to leave our operations alone. Was there any chance to get rid of Anatoli's body?"

"No, the stupid bitch started screaming her head off and the kid was so busy puking that the neighbors had phoned the cops before we could act on it. We don't need a copy of the coroner's report though, to know what happened to him."

"That is just fucking great," Fletcher hissed. "Call a phone conference for this afternoon. The cops will be on us like shit on a blanket AGAIN and we better ALL have our stories straight this time."

Fletcher disconnected the phone. He took a moment to collect himself, straightening his shoulders. Talking to the Ontario boss always brought out his Strathcona roots, and he hated that.

The small time hood that he had been was long buried under the prosperous façade of Joseph Fletcher.

He swept out of the library and back down the hall to his bedroom suite with Matthews trailing at a respectful distance.

***

Fletcher had been pacing for almost an hour up and down in front of the floor to ceiling windows. His view was of the manicured lawns and gardens that ran down to the rocks of the shore, drenched in the rain and the watery morning light. When his associate in Vancouver had been drowned and left posed in his own bed, Joseph had known where to lay the blame.

He had made his own discreet and sometimes not too discreet inquiries. It had become apparent that those actually directly involved with the hit had faded away into the mists, the radical population was very mobile and very hard to effectively track.

He had retaliated with beatings and arson and threats. He would have to consider harsher tactics; he needed some names.

Finally he barked at Matthews, "Wake the chef, I want breakfast in half an hour in the dining room."

When Matthews had made his discreet withdrawal, Fletcher went to the window, staring out into the dawn. His eyes focused on a small out cropping of rock just off the beach, too small to be called an island, nothing but a lone, gnarled cedar tree surrounded by clumps of hardy beach grass clung there.

As Fletcher watched, a lone seal hauled out up onto the rock.

***

Orion Gaelan was cold; the chill air raised pebbled goose flesh along his arms and legs. The rocks were worn smooth and coated with algae under his bare feet as he picked his way silently along in the darkness, moving further into the shadows under the fisherman's wharf. Above his head the wooden planks of the wharf stretched back out towards the water and he could see the dark bulk of the fishing boats tied up further out along the pier.

He had hidden clothing among the dry rock backfill of the foot of the wharf. The ornamental garden and the dense backdrop of shrubbery formed an effective screen as the land dipped towards the water creating a small semi-enclosed space like a three walled room.

He had used this space many times since he had begun to come ashore again. It was…convenient.

At first he had feared that it might be a favored haunt of the homeless who were always looking for the security of such hidden spaces, but its proximity to the water, a predisposition to flooding when the tides were high, and the overwhelming smell of the fishermen's catch were enough to keep the space deserted.

He retrieved the waterproof bag from its hiding place and pulled out the towel and garments, just as the shivering had become full-fledged tremors. He was hunched over not quite double as he used the towel to roughly rub the water and salt from his legs and lower body. He struggled to pull on his shorts and then cursed under his breath as he fought to pull the denim of his jeans up over the damp skin of his thighs. He was impatient, but after the first time he banged his head on the underside of the wooden wharf, he forced himself to calm and methodically managed to make the garment cooperate.

Once he had laid the plastic bag out on the ground and folded the towel over it he sat down to don the t-shirt, sweatshirt, and down jacket. He flipped his wet hair out of his face as he was tying his work boots, and his attention was caught by the long line of salt-encrusted pilings that ran like columns down a promenade away to the water, in ever increasing heights. The pattern of light and shadow spoke to him and he suddenly wished for his camera. _I will have to come back,_ he thought, _at a later time, another night. I need to find Liath._

By the time he had towel-dried his hair and finger-combed it he was beginning to warm inside his clothing. He tucked the towel and the waterproof bag into the small empty backpack and cast a quick look around on the ground for anything, any trace left behind.

_He was overly cautious_; he knew that, _Liath had told him again and again that there was nothing to fear, when she had coaxed him finally to return to the land. But then Liath had never had…_

His mind moved suddenly and obsessively to the image of his skin, hidden, safe at last, safe. He breathed a sigh as he held that comforting image for a moment.

_Liath doesn't know,_ he thought, _what it meant to be stranded in human form, to have lost a part of yourself and to be unable to find it. To know the terror and despair of imprisonment, only to find that the one you love has become your jailor._

_No Liath didn't know what it was to beg and plead for her freedom and to have to endure the touch of the human who enslaved you, to stay month after month on the land while the love you once held in your heart soured and transformed to a bitter and hard masquerade._

_She didn't know the long and sleepless nights stretched out at the side of the one who imprisoned you, for the sake of love._

_Liath didn't know the months of careful observation and covert action, to solve the most important mystery of your existence; she didn't know that the overwhelming sense of relief at the long awaited reclaiming of your skin, would be slowly swallowed by the empty space that the loss of your lover left in your heart._

_Liath didn't know and he hoped devoutly that she never ever would._

Swinging the pack up to one shoulder he scuttled outward until he could stand almost upright beneath the wharf, by then almost at the water's edge. After looking carefully about and noting that at this late hour the streets were deserted, he stepped out from his shelter and crossed quickly to the street.

He could cut across behind the parliament buildings and then directly across Beacon Hill Park where once he emerged onto Cook Street it was just a few short blocks to Liath and Clare's small house in Fairfield. He needed to find Liath; he needed to speak to her.

The streets and spaces behind the grand parliament buildings were deserted and dark. They held the particular kind of stillness that comes between very late night and very early morning, when the nighttime world has gone to rest and yet the daytime world still slumbers, cocooned in safety.

As he trudged along Orion thought about the past twelve hours. He shook his head ruefully.

_I really just want to be left alone,_ he thought, _but it appears that is just not to be. Christ, that woman in Stanley Park this afternoon. I just know she was from Linda; I just know it. I could feel it. _

_I thought for a moment she had me. It was like I couldn't move, or like I was running through mud. She was so fast. Sure she just wanted to talk…sure! And to change in broad daylight on a beach in Stanley Park in front of her! She didn't even look that surprised. I was so happy to get back in the water; fuck, if I'd have known what was going to happen I would have just travelled back here in seal form._

Beacon Hill Park was dark and shadowed with the overhanging trees, and he stayed to the pathway even through the ornamental gardens, his feet sounding hollowly over the footbridge.

_I was sure that it was better to go to Ryan's place in Tswassen. He was cool about it, loaning me the clothes and the money for the ferry—shit, I HAVE to remember to mail that back to him. What are the odds, I mean really, what are the odds that Ben and Will would be sitting in the seats behind me on the ferry? I am so fucking glad they didn't see me. If they knew, that I knew, that I heard…I could just take to the water again, that would be so much…._

He hitched the pack up onto his other shoulder as he paused before crossing Cook Street. He looked straight down past the park, past the long row of pools of lamplight, and could see the darkness of the ocean beyond Dallas Road.

_No I can't do that, at least not until I talk to Liath and tell her what I heard._

There were no lights on in their house when Orion went through the gate and up the few steps to the front door. He knocked once sharply, and could hear the shrill barking of a small dog from the house next door. There was no response and he knocked again. The overhead porch light came on, and he said in a loud voice, "Liath it's me, Orion, let me in." The door opened and Clare stood wrapped in a robe, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Clare," he said. "Is Liath here? I need to speak with her."

The distress in his voice brought Clare completely awake. "Why no Orion, Liath isn't here. I believe that she is with her new beau this evening. But I know that she is supposed to play at the Esquimalt Youth Center at lunch time today so I am sure she'll be home in at most a couple of hours. Won't you come in Orion? I'll make some tea to warm you up, and then you can stretch out on the sofa for a bit while you wait for her."

A half an hour later, with the peppermint tea warm in his belly, his head propped on a spare pillow, and a worn quilt thrown over his lanky frame, Orion lay on his back on the sofa, listening to Clare's whispered, "G'night," and the soft tread of her steps back to her room.

He closed his eyes and though he felt exhausted, sleep wouldn't come. As he stared at the play of light and shadow across the ceiling he cast his mind back to the overheard conversation that so troubled his heart.

"_They're doing it tonight," Ben had said in a hushed tone. "It's all planned down to the last detail. The Russian is the one they are taking out."_

"_Sidorov, the fucking meat packer?" Will responded, in a rumbling whisper._

"_Yesss," Ben hissed his response, the excitement evident in his voice. "Archer is going to call me when it's a done deal. He and Joseph will be on the flight out to the coast before dawn. The big boys have been really turning up the heat on us in the last little while. Archer says that at least three of their guys have gone missing, vanished off the face of the earth. Joseph got dragged into an alley at a boycott march and beat up pretty bad before a cop car pulled up and they dropped him. So Archer is nervous. He wants to lay low over on one of the Gulf Islands for a bit."_

_Orion had sunk lower into his seat, and pulled the hood of his jacket forward to more thoroughly obscure his face._

_I knew it was them, I knew it, he had thought, all those questions about what I thought should happen to the mobsters and sealers and hunters. I knew, and I just refused to see it. I wish that Becky had never confided to them that we exist. I wish Liath had never let her see…And they thought, they thought that I might help them in such an endeavor, that I would be party to their murdering revenge, because I am Selchie…_

"_So does that mean that the next hit is going to be out here again?" Will said in a louder more excited whisper, momentarily forgetting himself in his arousal._

"_For God's sake man, keep your voice down," Ben hissed, then after a moment continued, "Archer says we will have to shuffle the list a bit so it might be us, yeah."_

_Orion had jumped as Ben's cell phone rang. When Ben had fished it out and answered he heard,_

"_You've got Ben. Hey…Archer, the project is completed? Man, that's wonderful .Not a hitch, you're good. yeah I'll be waiting at the airport for you. No, no we'll sail over. Uhh-huh…Good, all right then, see you tomorrow."_

"_It's done," Ben confided to Will. "Come on let's go down to the cafeteria and get a coffee, I'll tell you all about it."_

_Orion had heard the rustling in the seats behind him as they stood and he had strategically rolled his body to the wall as they passed by him, as though he was seeking a more comfortable position in sleep. If they had looked, and he wasn't sure they had, but if they did they would only have seen the anonymous back of a sleeping passenger. _

_Orion had stayed put in his seat, until the last call for vehicle drivers had sounded, and then he had moved quickly, with his hood overshadowing his face, to the foot passenger exit. There was no sign of Ben or Will. As he came up the escalator and was finally out of the terminal he walked straight past the bus stop, where the foot passengers were lining up, and he kept going out into the dark of the parking lot. When he was far enough away from the lights he started to jog. _

_At Lands End he made his way to the water. It was not as fast but it was safer this way, he had thought as he stripped off his clothes at the rocky edge of the shore…_

Orion opened his eyes to the shadowed ceiling above him; _he needed to speak to Liath. She would be able to tell him what to do with the information he had. Liath would know what to do. He wished that she were here now with her calm eyes and smiling face. As soon as she came home, he would tell her everything he knew, everything he suspected._ _As soon as she came home, then he would be free to return to the waves._

He turned on his side seeking a more comfortable position and eventually, as the sky outside began to lighten, he closed his eyes in a restless slumber. He closed his eyes to a dream…

_Ben was trying to drown Linda, his Linda, in waist deep water just off the shore. She was calling to him as she fought and thrashed, fighting Ben's hands on her throat "Orion, help me, help me…please!"_

_Now Ben held her under the water and Orion could see the disturbed and churning surface of the water as the air escaped her lungs. _

"_Linda," he screamed, "Linda." He thought his heart would burst, but he couldn't help her, he was chained to the shore, he was a prisoner on land. The surface of the water stilled, and then Ben's cell phone began to ring. _

"_You've got Ben…"_


	29. Chapter 29

When Mike emerged from the washroom, shaved and showered, Liath was already dressed in the clothes he had scrounged from his suitcase for her. A too–large white shirt with the sleeves rolled back overhanging sweatpants that covered her feet, his hooded blue sweatshirt on the chair back beside her.

She sat in the watery light at the window working his comb through the ends of her hair. The eyes she turned to him when she heard his step were dark and circled, smudged with grief, yet her gentle smile as their eyes met set off a resonance in his heart.

He thought that he had never seen something quite so strong and fragile at the same instant, and an answering smile spread across his own clean-shaven face. He crossed to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. "I need to go into the station," he said, the regret clear in his voice.

"Oh, I know that Michael," she said her voice soft, "I don't want you to worry about me, please. Do you think that Maxine will have been called about…Teddy yet?"

"They found Teddy's body yesterday and had identified him by evening, I am sure she will know by now. They will have sent someone out from the station here to see her." Mike's brow lowered slightly _God only knows how many times he had been that officer at the family's door._

"Well I am going to go home and change, and cancel the gig I had today and then go over to Maxine's to be with her for a while. See if there is something, anything I can do to help." While they had been speaking Liath's fingers had been busy making a rough plait that she now flipped over her shoulder as she stood, drawing in a long and steadying breath.

Mike gathered her close in his arms and looking into her face said huskily, "You were so upset last night Liath, are you sure that you want to…"

"Yes Michael, I'm sure. Maxine has been a good friend to me, and I want to be there for her if I can, at least until her family arrives. I think her daughter and son-in-law live in Edmonton, so it will take some time for them to arrive. She is going to need someone Michael. I'll call you later this afternoon, OK?"

In a few minutes he stood in the hotel parking lot watching her drive off in Clare's sedan and he felt his heart contract painfully as she disappeared from view. He wanted to follow, to tell her to wait, to stay with her. Drawing in a purposeful breath he shook his head, and fit the keys in his car door.

***

The station was abuzz with activity even though it was just after 6:30 AM. He flashed his visitors badge at the front desk to receive a single raise of a hand from the harried officer at the booking desk, waving him through.

He made his way to the squad room and was greeted by the warm, heavenly smell of coffee and it made his mouth water instantly. He made his way over to the kitchenette as though he were a bloodhound on the scent, where one of the other detectives he recognized greeted him.

"Hey Celluci," he said as he handed Mike the steaming mug he had just poured. "I take it you heard?"

"Yeah, Graham, my partner in Toronto, called me." Mike replied as he poured a packet of sugar into the cup.

"There's a briefing in conference room three in about twenty minutes. Good thing Sergeant Mitchell made a _Timmy's_ run this morning, eh!"

He waved his hand over the large flat box of dozens of donuts, indicating that Mike should help himself, and then continued, "We found a desk for you; I'll show you where. There were a number of faxes on the machine for you this morning and you'll be able to access your e-mail from there."

"Thanks," Mike said as he fished a couple of sugared donuts out of the assortment. _You must be slipping Celluci,_ he thought to himself as, balancing a paper plate of donuts on top of his coffee mug and picking up his attaché, he followed, _what the hell is his name? It's French, I know…P...Pel, something…Pell…Pellerin!_

When they had arrived at the small desk already stacked with files, Mike dropped his attaché on the chair and set his coffee down. He loosened his tie and checked his watch and then said to the other man's wry grin. "Thanks Pellerin, I guess I have about 15 minutes to look these over?"

"See you in the briefing," Pellerin raised a hand and moved off towards his own desk.

There was barely enough time to quickly look through the faxed sheets that Dave had sent him, and he skimmed through an update that Kavanaugh had forwarded him from Vancouver, making some quick comments in the margins. He dusted off the sugar granules from his fingers and then flipped the file closed.

When he had first started reading Dave's distinctive handwriting in the notes on the printed pages his thoughts had flown briefly to consider Dave on the phone to Vicki.

He was pretty sure she would be pissed that he had Dave call her instead of him but really, Vicki pissed was nothing new so…. He would have to call her today though, there was a name in the new file that had appeared with some regularity. Vicki's missing person Orion Gaelan, his name surfaced somewhere in the paperwork in each of the files. _I need to know what_ _she knows,_ he thought, _yeah, after the briefing I will give her a call. _He took one last swig of the now cold coffee and, files under his arm, made his way to the conference room.

***

Liath was sorrowing; her heart was breaking at the loss of her young kinsman Rory, lost to a fisherman's greed and violence, He had stayed in seal form and the sea had taken his remains, as he had wished.

He was gone and there was nothing but the sorrow in her heart to mark his passing. The tears ran in a slow overflowing trickle trembling on her cheeks and she wiped at them as she drove.

A mournful tune welled up in her, slow rolling as the sea and aching and she knew it for its title the moment her mind settled into the melody, reminiscent of the hush of the withdrawing tide. "Rory's Lament," so she would mark his loss.

Rory lost to the fisherman's greed and Teddy now to the sealers and the mobsters. How could she comfort Maxine, for the loss of her boy? She did not know, but she had to try.

She pulled the sedan into the drive and lifting her bag of damp clothing from the seat she climbed wearily out of the car and swung closed the door.

She squinted her eyes against the too bright sun that poured down between the scattered cloud, morosely wishing for grey skies and rain that the whole world might mourn with her. She thought briefly of the grey green water at the surface of the ocean, buoyant and glowing with the sun from the air above. She wished, oh, she wished that she could escape this day in that liquid sky, but she knew her friend needed her.

With a heavy sigh she started up the steps to the house wondering what how she would tell Clare and fumbling for her keys. The door was suddenly drawn open and Orion stood with his hand out to her, his eyes the dark and solid brown of the selchie. "Liath, I need to speak with you," he said.

***

"You're sure of this Orion?" she couldn't help asking though she knew by his voice he was repeating what he had heard word for word.

Orion nodded as he sat with his head bowed and the tears slowly slipping down his face.

"Rory's gone," he whispered.

Liath reached out to lay a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and then she chucked him gently under the chin and when his brown eyes met hers she said, "We must focus on the living Orion; you know that, don't you?"

Orion sighed and nodded, finally agreeing in a sad voice, "I know."

Clare came into the room, laying the tea tray on the table, three steaming mugs and the cozy covered pot and cream and sugar.

"Liath," she said, "Do you not think that it might be best to tell your…Michael about this? He is a detective after all is he not?"

Orion's eyes came up to Liath's, "you can't tell the police Liath, Linda will find me and…"

Liath shook her head slowly. "Oh Clare, I really wish I could, but I…I haven't told him what I am yet, and until I do…I just don't know how I could explain what I know. I know that Michael is a good man and I already love him but…"

"You know that when he finds out, everything will change, Liath. It always does. They think they love us, but when they know, then we are somehow less, an animal, a thing to be possessed," Orion said, his voice not much more than a broken whisper.

Clare drew in a breath to speak, but Liath overrode her.

"Orion, you know that you're only talking about Linda. It's not fair to Clare or Becky or any of the others that know to say they are the same as the one who hurt you. Yes, I wish that Becky hadn't told Ben but…well it's too late for that now. She shook her head once more in denial. "How could they think that any selchie would have a part in their murderous activities? I just need to think, think about the best way to handle this…the best way to stop them."

Clare looked at her friend and there was sympathy in her voice when she said, "Liath you can't wait too long, you know that. What if they hurt someone else, do it again, or what if more of our own are hurt in retaliation? What about that? You know that's what happened to Teddy. Oh my God, Liath what are you going to say to Maxine?"

"That is why I have to think, Clare," Liath moaned as she dropped her head to her hands. "I need to think how I can protect The Society and the good work that we do. I need to think how I can keep us safe, and I need to think how I can stop this madness." _I need to think how to tell him_.

"I just need to think…"


	30. Chapter 30

The long, lean, black expanse of the limousine pulled smoothly away from the curb and moved off down Cordova.

Henry watched pensively after it as the taillights' red glow disappeared around the curve in the road. As he was watching the car, Vicki was watching the vampire. Finally he shook himself and came back to the present. He turned to her with his eyes shadowed with the memories of the past, then he dropped his gaze and pulling his coat closed across his pale chest, he carefully buttoned its length. He turned up his collar and shook his curls clear. His face was composed and clear-eyed when he looked at her again.

She had so many questions floating around in her mind, bubbling up and demanding attention and explanation. So much that she wanted to know, and there was so much that she suddenly wondered would she ever know? Could she ever know?

Henry glanced once more in the direction the car had disappeared and then said, "He will be alright." It was a statement that seemed made more to quiet his concerns than hers.

"Augustus will know what needs to be done, to care for the Foundling," Henry said as he took her arm and began to walk along the deserted street in the direction of his car.

"The Foundling," Vicki repeated the words and the tone as she pulled her arm free from his loose grasp. "The Foundling, you make that sound like a name, like it describes the thing that he is…Oh My God! Henry, does your blood do…something to the child? Please don't tell me that…"

Henry interrupted her with an abrupt movement of his hand. "Vicki please, there are actions which are proscribed, even among…my kind. We do not feed on the young or those who carry the young. We would never, never turn a juvenile. The thought itself is repellent, reprehensible; it is simply not in our nature. My species has no children Vicki, no younglings. There are newborns in the blood, yes. There are fledglings, yes. We can sire a Childe…but there are no children. That would be a true abomination."

"But I heard you tell Annie to tell Augustus that you had given your blood to the baby, why?" Vicki persisted.

"I told you Vicki, back in that hellhole, that my blood would not harm him, it will not. It is the virtue of my blood which maintained his life, allowed him to strengthen and heal from the ravages of his birth; without it he would have died, you know this."

Vicki nodded numbly as the Jag came into view, parked beneath the streetlamp under the watchful eye of Cassandra.

Henry stopped to stand still in the street, and as Vicky turned to him, he sighed and then dropped his shoulders, turning his hands up in a swift supplication. "Augustus needs to know. I am sure I will be hearing from him as soon as Annie tells him, what I have…done. My blood will not turn the infant, but it does have…ramifications. The child is now bonded to me and I to him, a blood bond and all that it entails. I said, 'the foundling' Vicki, but it would be more correct to say, 'my foundling.'"

Vicki watched as Henry's eyes drifted back down the deserted street, back in the direction that the limo had vanished. When he turned back to her, though his eyes remained human they had a distinct inward focus to them. "His belly is full of milk, he is warm and there is a comforting secure grip around him. He is, uncomfortable though, an ache in the belly, which pains him. He protests this…bitterly. There is a soothing pressure on him, a rhythmic tapping like a heartbeat. Then a sudden release of that pain…he has, lost some of the sustenance that he took.

Henry's eyes drifted closed and he turned his head as his actions illustrated his words. He feels the warmth of flesh against his cheek; he searches for…more, more comfort, nuzzling…searching…

With a long sigh Henry's eyes re-opened and he looked at Vicki tenderly.

"He will be fine," he said again.

"You're in his head?" Vicki asked, struggling with the concept.

"Not precisely Vicki, we are linked together by blood, I can…_travel_…that link to him," Henry explained as he began to walk again.

"Is this a two way street Henry? Can that babe sense what is going on in your…life?" Vicki asked, unsure of what she felt.

Henry's lips tightened slightly, but he answered readily enough, "Were I to open myself to the link, and were the foundling to seek me, yes, he would be able to sense me."

"Anything else?" she asked, sensing a certain diffidence in Henry's response.

"There are other…"

"Ramifications?" she supplied, the touch of sarcasm plain in her tone.

"The Foundling will be more sensitive, to certain…things. Will have certain abilities, which are…less common in the human population. Augustus will know what to…"

Vicki drew in a sudden breath, "You've done this before, haven't you, haven't you? That's why you know so much about what to expect. That's why Augustus is going to be angry, isn't it?"

"Twenty-eight years ago, I found an abandoned infant in a dumpster," Henry admitted. "Yes there is another, though he is a man grown now. And yes, Augustus will be angry with me. Rightfully so, for in some ways I endanger us all, by what I have done; but I couldn't Vicki, I just couldn't let him…die."

They had reached the car by this time, Cassandra watching them from dark eyes. Henry approached the hooker and caught his gaze. A large and lascivious smile spread across the heavily made up face, and the carefully manicured hand raised to tap Henry on the chest.

"Offer's still open Henry," the low-pitched voice purred, suggestively, and hope sprang into the shadowed eyes as smiling, Henry pulled another fifty-dollar bill from his clip.

Vicki could hear the unmistakable note of compulsion in Henry's voice as he said, "You did a good job watching Cassie, thank you." The whore's smile grew wider as he handed over the money. "You haven't seen me tonight Cassie, take your money and go home, get out of the rain."

Then he stepped back, and Cassandra, now oblivious to their presence, pushed away from the fence and in mincing steps disappeared into the darkness. Henry turned and opened the passenger side door of the car for her. Without quibble Vicki slid past him to seat herself in the leather interior.

When they were headed back towards the park, Vicki spoke from the shadows; she did not turn her face toward Henry as she asked the question.

"Can you tell me about Jared?" she said. She felt rather than saw the shift in Henry's posture, as though he drew in on himself slightly, still his voice was even as he said, "I should take you back to your hotel Vicki. It is after three." Then he added more softly, human concern coloring his voice, "You must be tired."

"Oh no, buster," she said, turning in her seat towards him. "There is no going back on this now; you have at least a couple of hours until it's nap time. Take me some place where we can talk."

Henry turned towards her, his eyes pools of shadow in the dimly lit interior. "Haven't you seen enough for one night Vicki?"

"Oh yeah, quite enough," she said resolutely, "but now I need your help to make sense of what I saw." _And what I felt_, she thought to herself.

Henry piloted the car back onto Georgia and they were almost at the foot of Georgia Street and the entrance to the park when Henry's phone began to ring.

If Vicki had not so recently witnessed the predator at the hunt she might not have found the trepidation in Henry's face funny when he glanced toward her. Perhaps it was because she had seen the ruthlessness of his recent feeding that the slight widening of his eyes as the phone rang again made a hysterical giggle well up in her throat.

"Augustus," they both said as one, and Vicki suddenly lost it as laughter won out.

The affronted look on Henry's face only made it worse, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as he flipped open his cell with one hand while tightening his grip on the wheel with the other.

"Fitzroy," he said shortly as he brought the device to his ear. There was a burst of speech on the other end of the line, and though Vicki could not hear the words, the giggling returned as Henry held the phone away from himself, a pained expression on his face.

"Augustus, after all these years have you forgotten how sensitive a vampire's hearing actually is?" he asked.

Again a long burst of speech, which Vick could not make out, though admittedly the volume was lower and Henry brought the phone back to his cheek.

"Yes, your son told me that you were in Montreal, I'm sorry it is so early Augustus. Thank you for suggesting Annie come for the…babe. It was easier for me to hand him over to her. I take it that she told you…" he paused for a moment, listening to the voice raised on the other end of the call.

"No, no I don't suppose it was, old friend, but what would you have had me do…leave him?" Henry said with a low growl, as he barreled through a yellow light and then made a hard right onto Park Drive, the maneuver causing Vicki to lean in her seat.

There was another short burst of unintelligible speech and then Henry shook his head and said, "Augustus, I have no doubt that Corie would take exception to that assertion." Henry paused again as Augustus spoke at some length. Vicki's amusement died as suddenly the air grew electric in the car and the vampire emerged again.

"This child is not Corbin, Augustus! They may be nothing alike," Henry replied heatedly and then modulating his voice he continued, "Will you foster him, or not?"

Again the electronic muttering just below her range of hearing and Vicki leaned towards Henry as they passed by the Aquarium unnoticed, her attention now focused totally on the vampire.

"Thank you Augustus," Henry said on a sigh as his shoulders dropped in relief. "Yes, yes I know, you're not as young as you used to be. No, of course, we can set it up the same as before…yes…we can go over the details as soon as you are back in Toronto, or if you prefer, make a trip to the coast. All right. Yes; and Augustus, thank you."

Henry flicked the phone closed and turned the car into the lot at Prospect Point pulling straight into the space. The lights of the North Shore spread out across the water in front of them and off to the left the span of the Lions Gate Bridge lit by thousands of white lights against the velvet of the sky. After a moment Henry turned off the car.

He could feel his Chosen next to him, his Vicki, his link. She was warm and her blood scent was rich and calming to him. He drew in a steadying breath. _I didn't realize how worried I was that Augustus would refuse the child,_ he thought.

"Who's Corbin?" Vicki asked.

Henry was fairly certain he didn't actually wince and his voice was calm as he said, "It is very late Vicki; there is not much time. Do you wish to know about Jared or Corbin?"

At the mention of his name, the image of the necklace of meticulous bites around Jared's throat rose to her mind, and the swift violence of Henry's feeding. Her eyes were steady on Henry's as she said, "Jared."


	31. Chapter 31

Henry nodded briefly and looked out to the dark mass of the North Shore Mountains as he began his story.

"When I…when I first came to this territory, Vancouver, I was, as Augustus so often put it, 'in bad shape.' I was staying temporarily in a safe house in the West End, as the renovations of my condo were not yet completed. The house was in an older neighborhood; large homes, tree lined streets, quiet. Somehow the streets all looked…"

"Foreign," Vicki volunteered. Her hand stealing across to rest on his denim clad thigh.

"Yes," he said with a bitter smile, "foreign." Henry turned her hand over and linked his cool fingers through hers, her palm warm against his.

The breath of the ocean was everywhere. I could not escape the sound, like the beating heart of a great beast; it wore on me. It was a new and strange place. Augustus and the 'Community' were supportive and kind, but I was alone, adrift and…" Henry paused, and for a moment it seemed that he would not continue.

"No more secrets Henry," she said quietly, "especially to spare my feelings, I already know the part my pride and indecision played in this."

"When I first arrived I spent…a lot of time in sanctuary. I would wake at dusk in a strange room, and unless the hunger was unbearable I would stay, eyes closed, between the sheets waiting for the dawn. After a week of this…behavior, Augustus came to me one evening and took me to see my new home. He was concerned…"

Henry paused for a long moment, looking down, his brow furrowed at the memory.

"He gave me a 'good talking to' and basically told me to stop moping around and…and that he wouldn't defend my territory for me against an interloper. He knows my kind too well Vicki; well enough to know it was the one threat that I could not ignore."

"After that night I took to the streets at each sunset, acquainting myself with my new home."

He smiled crookedly though he did not look at her; a soft huff of a chuckle escaped him. "I even hunted in Stanley Park, hiding in the bushes, waiting to waylay a 'meal on wheels' as they rode by."

He felt her hand tighten in his and looked sharply at her as a choked sob escaped her, the light across the water reflecting on the tears that shimmered in her eyes. "Henry," she said on a sigh, "I'm so sorry, I thought, I thought…"

Henry just shook his head and continued, "It was during this time that I found a small coffee house, Arteros, reminiscent of the old ones in the 50's; the kind of place where art students and artist, poets and musicians would gather. I am sure that Coreen would love it," he said, his lips lifting slightly at the Goth's name. "It was open to all hours and was always full of…interesting people."

"They hang the work of an artist each month, in kind of an informal gallery. The second time I hunted there I saw Gillian's work. She was a student at Emily Carr, I have never seen such raw talent, such vision and such a focus on beauty." Henry began to speak more quickly now. "I made it my business to meet her, and began to encourage her as best I could. We would meet and talk for hours about her work. I brought her supplies, books…"

"No more secrets Henry," Vicki said, her voice wavering only slightly, though she suspected that Henry could hear what felt like the painful thumping of her heart. "Were you…lovers?"

Henry shook his head, his eyes clear as he said, "No, I never told her what I am Vicki. I never…tasted her. She gave something to me, that I couldn't find anywhere else, something I needed."

"Then one night, I saw her at a club. She was with some friends and she was different. I could scent the drugs on her. When I asked her about it later, she said that she had just tried it once, that some guy had 'given' it to her. That she wasn't interested in doing it again."

Henry ran a hand over his face and then continued, "I didn't see her for three weeks at Arteros and she didn't answer my calls." If he noticed Vicki's indrawn breath he gave no sign.

"I was hunting in Strathcona one night and I came across Gillian and her…pimp on Hastings. She was so stoned that she could barely recognize me, and when she did, even when Jared offered to _sell her to me, _though she was willing to do any number of things_, _she refused to talk to me, nothing but the drug mattered to her anymore."

"Two weeks later, her body was found naked and mutilated in the woods surrounding a public park in Duncan on Vancouver Island. I saw the story in the paper and a picture of the Jane Doe. She had died of her wounds but the levels of drugs that were in her blood would have been lethal anyway and Jared…" his voice hardened "Jared was responsible. It may not have been his hand that killed her but he is responsible all the same. All that talent, all that promise…lost. One of her instructors at the college recognized her picture and identified the body."

Henry fell silent for a moment and Gillian's young and avid face rose in his mind's eye as she sat in conversation with him. He saw the artist's hands flutter with her enthusiastic speech. He saw again the fragile pattern of her life branching across her flesh. _I should have compelled her_, he thought; _it would have broken her spirit, but..._

"And so I began to _visit_ Jared," he said as he turned in the seat towards Vicki. "He admitted the first time I, _visited,_ that he had used the drug to bend Gillian to his will and to keep her his slave. On another, _visit, _he confided that he had arranged the 'assignment' on the Island for her, through his 'boss' in Victoria…Joseph Fletcher."

"Do you think that Fletcher had some involvement in Gillian's murder?" Vicki asked.

"Undoubtedly, at least to my mind. However, Victoria and in fact the whole of Vancouver Island is another's territory. When I have…_finished_ with Jared, I may ask Augustus to intercede for me with _the resident_."

The thought of the constraint of territorial imperatives on the being beside her brought Vicki up short, yet she thrust the idea aside for later consideration.

"Why don't you just kill that bastard Jared and be done with it, then Henry?" she said, the image of the beautiful and bizarre pattern of bite scars rising again.

"Spoken like a true supporter of _due process_," Henry said wryly. "I believe you have been spending entirely too much time with Celluci and his vigilante views when it comes to dealing with personal issues." Vicki had the good grace to blush, wondering, _does he sense the blood rising to my cheeks the same way I do?_

Henry shook his head in negation and she watched the expressive eyes narrow. "Firstly that would be too small a wergild, for what he has robbed me of and secondly once I had fed upon him, I understood that Jared is the way he is for a reason." The distaste on Henry's face was plain.

"So, I continue to feed upon him, and compel him and terrify him. But he is under no compulsion of mine to stay here within my territory. He is free to leave, but his own greed keeps him here. I have taken the better part of his strength; when he is hospitalized I will consider that he has made his choice, and then, I will drain him."

The ancient implacability of the vampire's voice both chilled and thrilled her.

Henry brought their still clasped hands up and placed a kiss on the back hers. Then he released her and reached to turn the key in the ignition. As she drew breath to protest, he said simply, "This level of openness is difficult for me Vicki, I am weary and the dawn is not far off. Allow me to take you to your hotel and then seek the respite of my own sanctuary."

The ten-minute ride to the Georgia Annex was conducted in silence, as Vicki went over in her mind what she had seen and heard tonight. When they arrived Henry walked with Vicki arm in arm to the courtyard and the French doors of her room.

Vicki pulled the ornate key from her jacket pocket but before she could fit it into the lock Henry took her in his arms and drew her gently to him. There was no trace of the predator that had attacked her earlier in the evening; his touch was gentle and sensuous when he lowered his lips to hers. And when she parted her lips, and he explored her mouth and she his, she was aware of how tightly leashed he held the vampire.

"I must go," he said reluctantly after a few moments, and he loosed his grip.

"Henry," Vicki said as he began to turn away and he swung his body back to her.

She regarded him as he stood silhouetted against the background streetlamp—virtually featureless but for the glitter of his eyes in the dark shadows of their sockets, his hair a russet and gold aura of curls lit from behind. He was poised for her words; he waited, ancient, and deadly.

"Tonight, when you waken, I'll be waiting," she said.

There was the flash of a broad white smile and then he was gone, and the night flowed around her, empty.


	32. Chapter 32

Her scent pervaded his sanctuary, when he returned. He was surrounded by it, in his car, in the elevator, and now as he opened the door. Her fragrance hung on the air, a shimmering veil that abruptly changed the landscape of his existence.

He lowered himself to the seat she had occupied, and allowed himself to be enveloped, in the intoxicating mix of adrenalin and the sweet human scent that was distinctly Vicki…his Vicki.

_Chosen,_ the word arose unbidden, _my chosen. I am besotted. I know it and yet, and yet, can I not allow myself this brief instant, to rejoice?_ His lips lifted in a widening and totally irrepressible grin. She had come; _she came to me, here, in my place. She said she will be here in Vancouver when I wake. She will be here when I wake, in spite of what I have shown her, in spite of what she has seen._

He crossed to the window and looked down to the street below, now devoid of traffic in the hour before dawn and then looked past the street to the beach and the water beyond. He wrapped his arms around himself, and looked out south and westward. In that direction laid Vancouver Island.

Vicki had told him that that was where Celluci had gone, where she thought her Orion Gaelan, the selchie, was hiding. She would want to travel there he knew, and he wanted…he wanted to stay with her, to guard her; he didn't want to be parted from her again…so soon.

He could sense the undercurrent of evil here, of avarice and of violence. He could sense the involvement of those in organized crime, those who had robbed him of Gillian, and those who owed him her wergild. He had done his research, and Jared's frenzied confessions had only confirmed his information. He knew who was controlling these murderers and criminals, Joseph Fletcher. Henry had his own business on the Island, and tonight sharing Gillian's story with Vicki had reminded him of that.

He crossed to the telephone and punched in a preset number. After a moment, when a male voice answered, he said, "This is Henry Fitzroy. Yes, I know that Augustus is in Montreal. No, I am calling on another matter. I wish to negotiate a dispensation to enter the territory of the resident in Victoria. I need it as soon as possible. Yes, yes, finalize as much as you can. I'll call you at dusk tonight. Yes, thank you."

_Adrienna Morris_. He knew her by name though he had never met her personally. Their territories abutted each other, and Henry had made it his business to find out all that Augustus would share.

She was old, far older than he, almost twice his age. That meant she was powerful, but reclusive. She had held her territory on Vancouver Island for more than 150 years as Augustus's records showed. _A very long time in one location,_ he thought, _what kind of alterations must she make to keep herself hidden through so many generations? She had been human in Scotland; I suppose that means that she might not be kindly disposed towards the bastard of Henry VIII, though there are some who simply cease to care about human affairs once they are turned. Well it is in the Community's hands now; they will arrange what they may, and I will worry about it tonight._

He could feel the dawn approaching; he had perhaps a half an hour. He lowered the shades and crossed through to his bedroom. Closing the doors and once again lowering the shades against the threat of the dawn.

_I need to wash away the stain of Strathcona,_ he thought, as he headed to the shower, and then he smiled grimly to himself. _I am willing to feast on Jared's blood, and yet I don't want the stench of his terror or the trace of the streets on my person._ Shaking his head at the vagaries of his sensibilities he turned on the hot water and stripped off his clothing.

The sun was closer by the time he emerged from the steamy air of the bath; he had another ten minutes or so. Turning back the sheets, he slid between the cool surfaces and as he laid his head on the pillow, wet ringlets drenched and darkened the material beneath him.

He composed his body, aware now that the sky was lightening on the other side of the shutters. _Vicki will be here when I waken,_ he reminded himself, a gentle smile tugging at his lips. _Vicki is here._

At the last as his breathing began to slow, each exhalation slower and shallower than the last, and as he relaxed into the arms of the dawn, he sent his mind out questing along the link he had forged this evening. _Augustus thinks me impulsive, I know, but Augustus doesn't know this, couldn't understand this._ He edged close to the flickering sleeping mind of his foundling, an infant consciousness full of dreams of warmth and dark and the beating of a heart that pulsed and pulsed…the liquid dark and the milky warmth…

***

She lay flat on her stomach, one arm bunched under her pillow, her head turned to the side. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes against fair skin. Her lips moved though no sound emerged; she was dreaming. Whoever it was who answered her in that dreamland, a smile was her response and then a sigh, as she rolled over to her back. Her hand brushed the night side table and Coreen Fennel joined the waking world again.

It took a moment for her to register where she was. She stared at the pattern of light on the wall and ceiling, small squares with rainbow refractions, not the yellow wedge of the streetlight that shone through her bedroom window at home…home?

She sat up suddenly, pushing her hair back from her face. _I am in Vancouver, at the hotel, with Vicki…Vicki? Oh my God! I wonder what happened. How could you fall asleep, Coreen, when she wasn't back yet? Right, not back yet…what time is it?_ She swung around to look at the clock on the side table.

_Five thirty AM, and it was already getting light. I wonder if she is back yet? Well I mean I'm sure she is, but if she wasn't, I mean if she wasn't, that could mean that she spent the night with Henry. Oh now that would be perfect. Of course if she spent the night with Henry, then that would have put her in a really good mood. She couldn't possibly be angry with me if it all worked out the way I planned. But what if it didn't? I saw her face as the elevator door was closing, jeez; I might be out of a job…but if they…._

Coreen threw back the covers and slipped out of the bed. She peeked through the curtains and though the courtyard was empty and covered with dew, the sky was definitely brightening and she could hear the low murmur of chirps and bird song, interspersed by a sharp warbling whistle now and again.

She turned away and crossed to the bed, wearing a t-shirt and sleep pants, and though the room wasn't exactly cold, goose bumps formed on the pale skin of her arms. Any one seeing her now would not recognize her as the Goth that they knew. Her face was washed clean of make-up and her hair, for the most part, pulled back into a ponytail; she looked like someone's little sister.

When she emerged from the washroom she thought, _maybe I'll just go and knock on her door and check if Vicki made it back. _Part of her mind was saying that that probably wasn't her most brilliant idea ever, but that rational thought was being drowned out by the clamoring voice of her curiosity.

Fortunately, for her, she was saved from what could have been a potentially life threatening situation when she noticed the folded sheet of paper that had been slipped under her door. She opened the page of hotel stationary and read:

_My dear little assistant, _

_YOU ARE DEAD!!!_

_All right, maybe just MORTALLY WOUNDED._

_But if you ever, I repeat EVER, do anything like that again…_

_YOU ARE DEAD!!! Do you understand?_

_I am in my room, ASLEEP. Wake me at TEN so I have time to get ready to go to the meeting at the aquarium._

_Coffee and Danishes will be an acceptable peace offering._

_Oh, I want you to find out anything you can on a Joseph Fletcher, Vancouver Island probably Victoria, and he's got a finger in prostitution so he's probably organized crime._

_Henry and I are…talking._

_You were lucky this time!_

_Vicki_

_*** _

"_Mon Dieu_, my backside fell asleep during the slide show," Pellerin confided as he walked out of the briefing room beside Mike. "I thought that the chief was never going to stop talking."

"Yeah, I will agree that it seemed to go on a far time but the guys in the crime lab really know their stuff," Mike said as he hoisted the new file of information.

"I agree, but then they now know what to look for."

Mike stretched out his back, "I need to look at the file on this Joseph Fletcher character, local right?

"Yes, very rich and very private and definitely very connected to the mob," Pellerin confirmed.

Mike's cell phone began to buzz; he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced down. He had been hoping it was Vicki. _I need to call her. The way I left it with her just wasn't right. _

Orion Gaelan's name came up again in relation to Sidorov and he knew Vicki's client's husband was enmeshed in his case somehow. He needed to know what she knew, he needed her insight and God damn it, he just missed her.

He waved a hand as Pellerin moved off to his desk; it wasn't Vicki's number on the screen. It was Liath's home number.

"Liath?" he said as he flipped the phone open.

"Michael, it's Liath," she said needlessly. He could hear the strain in her voice.

"Liath, what is it? Are you alright?" he asked quickly.

"The concern in his voice calmed her a little and she said more firmly, "Yes Michael, I'm all right. Can you come to our house, please?"

"Liath, I am working a case here and…"

"My…cousin…Orion Gaelan is here Michael, I think you need to hear what he has to say," Liath interrupted him, before either she or Orion lost their nerve.

"I'll be right there; give me fifteen minutes. I'm leaving now," he said, holding the cell between shoulder and ear as he shrugged an arm into his coat.

"All right Michael, we'll be waiting," she said and disconnected.

She hugged her arms around herself, and looked at Orion's ashen face as he stared up at her.

"It's better this way Orion, we can't let them go on so, we have to stop them." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "All you really have to do is to tell him what you overheard on the ferry. Just say you were visiting with Ryan on the mainland and were coming back, he won't ask about that anyways."

"But Liath, there was the woman who saw me at Stanley Park, she chased me. She said she wanted to talk…and I…I…changed in front of her." he confessed in a whisper.

"That has nothing to do with talking to Michael. He doesn't even know we exist Orion; he won't ask," Liath assured him. "We have to tell what we know."

***

Mike pulled up in the rental, parking at the curb. The street was part of a quiet, old, and sedate neighborhood, just a few blocks from the ocean; he could hear the gulls overhead and could smell the salt water in the air.

He felt the heat of anticipation stir inside him at the thought that Liath waited for him inside the house. He wanted to see her again, be near her again, to listen to the sound of her voice. _Come on Celluci, snap out of it,_ he chastised himself. _You're not a moonstruck teenager._ But the memory of her eyes and her smile…

_So, Orion Gaelan, I get to meet you at last. What part do you play in this little mystery, he wondered, and what is your relationship to my Liath?_

He had not even set his foot on the bottom step when the door opened and Liath flew into his arms. He tightened his embrace around her.

"Come in…come in, Michael," she said as she stepped back, drawing him by the hand after her.

As she entered the living room a dark-haired, handsome man with the same warm brown eyes as his Liath's rose from a chair. He wiped his palms against his thighs nervously and then held out his hand to Mike.

"Detective Celluci," he nodded a brief greeting, "I am Orion Gaelan."

_He's frightened, nervous,_ Mike noted, _but his handshake is firm, denoting determination, and the brown eyes are clear. So like Liath's eyes, and the voice, the same calming and melodious voice. I wonder just how closely they are related._

Mike could feel Liath hovering at his shoulder, her concern palpable.

It was Clare who said from the doorway, "Why don't we all have a seat? Let me take your coat, Michael."

Settling in the chair in front of the window, Mike extracted a pen and a pad of paper from his pocket and flipped it open. Orion looked nervously at Liath who was seated close beside him on the sofa. She patted his arm and then she said, "Michael, Orion told me something this morning that I thought it was important for you to hear. I believe that it has bearing on the case that you are working."

Mike didn't like the fact that Liath was sitting so close to Orion, but he did his best to shunt his jealousy to the side. The man was so obviously upset, that he felt the stirring of sympathy for him, as he sat head down virtually wringing his hands in his lap.

"Why don't you just, start at the beginning and tell me the whole story, Mr. Gaelan…Orion? I'll try not to interrupt unless I need you to clarify some point or other. When you are all finished then I will probably have a few questions for you." He paused and then continued in his professional detective tone, "I appreciate any information or help that you can give me." He flashed a smile at Gaelan, and then a warmer smile at Liath as she looked appreciatively across at him.

Gaelan nodded, and hesitantly began his story at the point he had arrived in Victoria and had begun to work with the Victoria Aquatic Mammal Protection Society and had first met Ben Turner and Will Hagan. He moved on to how they had pressured him about his opinions in regards to attacking the sealers and traders in endangered species, or about the vigilante justice that they purported.

Unless his body language reading skills were way off, Mike was pretty sure that Orion had been disgusted by their suggestion of justifiable violence. Yet he was sure that Orion was hiding something. He didn't like the way Orion kept glancing to Liath as though seeking permission for what he was saying, or her supporting nods. It seemed that she knew what Orion was hiding.

When he had repeated what he had overheard Ben say about the Sidorov hit, Mike noted down the two names, Archer Ferris and Joseph Leblanc as well as noting that there were beatings and other disappearances mentioned.

He interrupted briefly, when he heard that Ferris and LeBlanc were arriving on a dawn flight. It was nearly two now, so they would be long gone already. Was Orion sure that they hadn't mentioned which island? But he was adamant. _No, just that they would lay low on a gulf island and that they were going to sail there. _He asked a few more questions and made some more notes.

When Orion finally fell silent, staring at the floor and looking, for all the world, as though he wished that he were somewhere far away, Mike asked the question that Orion had been dreading.

"Why are you hiding from your wife Orion? Liath told me that you were 'unhappy in your marriage.' Here Orion's eyes flew to Liath. A look of surprise flashed across his face, but she shook her head almost imperceptibly and lifted a hand slightly. Mike knew she was passing some hidden message to Orion, and noted that the man's face was noticeably calmer as he looked back to Mike.

"My wife, Linda, stole something from me detective, something more valuable to me than you can imagine. I knew that she had it, and she refused to return it to me. She used the fact that she had…this thing in her possession to blackmail me into remaining with her. When I finally managed to reclaim…what was mine, I disappeared. She is obsessed with finding me. I never want to see her again." Orion was obviously choosing his words with care.

"Why didn't you go to the authorities, if Mrs. Gaelan had stolen something from you and was blackmailing you?"

Orion shook his head slowly from side to side. He didn't look at Mike but answered while focused on Liath, "It wasn't something that the police could help me with, it was…private."

Clare spoke from across the room, "Does the difficulty in Orion's personal life have something to do with these murders, Detective? Do you think that his loving the wrong sort of person is somehow tied into what he overheard and now is voluntarily reporting to you?"

Mike heard the defensive challenge in Clare's voice and there was a low fire burning in her gaze as he looked at her. Her words touched something in him. _Isn't that what is going on between Vicki and the bloodsucker? Haven't they each fallen for the wrong kind of…person? Is he even a…person? _

His voice was calm when he responded. "It's hard to know where the connections lie, Clare. Sometimes the most disparate and seemingly innocent pieces of information make up the final piece of the puzzle."

To Orion he said, "I have a colleague, Victoria Nelson; she works in the private sector. Your wife hired her to find you. As far as I know she is in Vancouver now." Mike pulled out his wallet and withdrew one of Vicki's cards. He held it out to Orion, who did not lift a hand to take it. Mike set it on the coffee table between them.

"I know Vicki," Mike continued. "It doesn't matter how much your wife is paying her; she won't reveal your location until she has the whole story, and of that you can be sure. Contact her, Mr. Gaelan; she will get to the bottom of this for you."


	33. Chapter 33

The door unlatched but didn't open. Coreen stood in the hall with an extra-large coffee in each hand and a paper bag containing the cream cheese and cherry Danishes held in her teeth. She rolled her dark eyes as she stared at the door.

_Still just a little disgruntled, I'll bet_, she thought, as she pushed the door to Vicki's room open with the toe of her boot.

Vicki had crossed the room to the window, and though she turned to watch Coreen as she entered she made no move to help. Beneath the towel that wrapped her head, Vicki's face was impassive, her arms crossed in front of her body. It was obvious that she had just finished showering, though at least she was dressed.

Coreen set the coffees on the dresser and placed the bag of pastries beside them, and then she lifted the strap of her laptop bag over her head and set the computer flat on the desktop.

Vicki watched the girl silently as Coreen fussed with the laptop, straightening it slightly so it sat square to the edge of the desk and then straightening the bottom of her shirt. Coreen was trying desperately not to look at her.

Finally with a sigh Vicki relented, "What did you find out about this Fletcher character? Are those cream cheese Danishes?"

Coreen let go of the breath that she had been holding, darted a black-rimmed glance at Vicki and said quickly, "Oh I found out some interesting things, about our Mr. Joseph Fletcher." She snatched the bag and a coffee from the dresser and crossed to pass them to Vicki. "Just let me get my laptop set up and then I'll give you the information. The other thing is that I got a file attached to an e-mail from Dave Graham this morning; apparently there has been another drowning in Toronto. He said that Mike asked him to contact you with the information."

Vicki stopped in the act of blowing across the steaming surface of the coffee in an effort to cool it enough to take a sip. "Another drowning, fuck. Why the hell didn't Mike call me?" Coreen opened her mouth to respond but Vicki held up a cautionary hand. "Never mind; it was a rhetorical question."

_I need to call him, _Vicki thought. _Some of the things he said, well…I can see now why… and I need to let him know about this whole selchie thing with Gaelan. He is just going to hate that this is one of my "strange" cases, but he needs to know. _She shook her head. "Let me see what you have from Dave and then give me the info on Fletcher."

Coreen produced a sheaf of paper from the pocket of her computer bag, and handed it over to Vicki, "That's the file from Dave Graham; I printed it out this morning."

Vicky took the paperwork in one hand and stood sipping her coffee as Coreen busily set up her computer and called up the folder in which she had stored her research of Joseph Fletcher.

_He is a scary guy,_ Coreen thought as she began to explain her findings to Vicki, _mob connections and a history of violence that spans decades._

"I hate this kind of scumbag," Vicki said around the Danish she was eating, "When I was on the force this kind of asshole used to drive me crazy. You knew, you just knew that they were dirty, involved in all sorts of major crimes, but there was never enough evidence to prosecute them."

_Well maybe when Henry catches up to him, there will be a little bit of justice meted out. Shit, when did I jump off the _due process_ boat?_ she thought to herself, shivering as she remembered the cold implacability of the vampire's voice as he talked about his revenge.

Coreen glanced over her shoulder to Vicki and pointed with a fingertip to the screen, "See this news paper article here, the guy who was just murdered, Sidorov, and Joseph Fletcher both listed as participants in a trade forum with the Russian government and the Department of Fisheries back in 1998. That is a long standing connection, and there are others as well."

Vicki flipped through the pages that Coreen had handed her. _Dave is good, _she thought, _his notes concise and well organized. And here it is; why am I not surprised? Orion Gaelan's name is right there on the POI list. He knows something. I just know he does._

Vicki brushed the crumbs from the front of her t-shirt and glanced at the clock. Ten fifty-five, she needed to be at the Aquarium in half an hour. "Give me ten minutes, Coreen and then meet me out in front of the hotel. Call a cab."

"But…" Coreen began as she closed her laptop. Vicki could see that Coreen was itching to know what had happened with Henry last night. _Well she can just cool her little jets, _she thought_. She had her little secret, _she thought grimly,_ and now I have mine. I am not really sure what I can say anyways…_

"Ten minutes Coreen…chop chop," Vicki said as she herded the Goth towards the door.

****

Archer Ferris felt the knots of tension begin to relax, in the before-noon quiet of the house on Galliano Island. The shower had worked wonders. He was glad to be out of the action for a while.

The sun was flowing in through the front windows of the log built, A-frame. He could see beyond the porch railing the rocky soil and the slope down to the water. The ocean was deep green and restless under the clouds, scudding across the sky.

"Joseph…" he called as he padded barefoot to the door pulling on his shirt. "Joseph, is that coffee I smell? Did Ben get back from town with the supplies?" He crossed through the door onto the porch.

The arm that came round his throat from behind him was a complete surprise, and the air whooshed out of his lungs as he was pulled up against a rock hard chest. He tried to twist to see his assailant, but stilled as he felt the metal of the gun barrel against his scalp.

"Fuck man, I haven't got any money," Archer whispered.

"Don't worry, I'll get paid when I finish this job." came the whispered response. "Joseph Fletcher sends his regards."

The last thing Archer saw as the cold metal of the barrel forced his head to the side was the body of his friend Joseph slumped in a lawn chair, a bullet hole in the side of his head.

Even with the silencer, the report of the gun and the coalescence of sudden violence in the air sent a flock of ravens up into the sky, from the trees beside the house. Protesting and calling out their unease in harsh voices, rolling and dipping, they flapped out over the water, black splotches against the sky.

The hit man dropped the body, twitching, to the porch floor. He wouldn't remove his mask or gloves until he was back in the boat and on his way off the island. _Fletcher will be pleased,_ he thought. _Good thing too. I've seen what a body looks like when Fletcher is finished with it. I'm not squeamish;_ he nudged Archer's body with his toe, _but what he does to those whores…"_

****

"So Vicki, you didn't tell me what happened last night with Henry," Coreen ventured, as the cab pulled away from the curb. _I'm pretty sure that she won't lay into me in front of the cab driver,_ Coreen thought. _And even if she does, it might be worth it, I am dying to know what happened. Not a word, except for the note, "Henry and I are talking."_

Vicki glanced at her assistant, stonily_. I could make her wait a bit longer, but I need her to know what I saw at the aquarium last night, and that means filling her in on the fact that Henry and I went there. It's just that, it's just that…I don't want to share. What happens between Henry and me, it's…ours._

"Henry and I are…talking Coreen. He has agreed to help us with the case. Even though he has been here a fairly short time, it is his city, and he has made a lot of connections."

"Is he…is he okay Vicki? I was really worried about him out here on his own…all alone. I mean, duh! I know he wasn't all alone, but he was without us. You know, you and me and the people who care about him." Coreen caught her lower lip between her teeth and then continued in a whisper. "Sure he is almost 500 years old but…well, I was really worried."

The fear and concern in Coreen's face cut through Vicki's annoyance with the girl. _I am so caught up in my own feelings about Henry, that I forget that other people l-love him too._

"We got off to a bit of a rough start, Coreen," Vicki said as her mind flew back to the suddenness of the vampire's attack and then the distance that had developed between them. "Henry was shocked to see me in his new territory and it was awkward for a little while. Both of us had some shit to work through. I eventually told him what we were doing out here, and told him about Orion Gaelan and the fact that he is a selchie. I also filled him in on the case that Mike is working and how our case is all mixed in with it."

"Did Henry have any information about the Selchies?" Coreen asked.

"Yeah, he said that he had run across selchies a long time ago, but that he had been unaware there were any in his territory. Then we drove over to the Aquarium to check out where I had seen Gaelan, so Henry could look around." Vicki continued.

The cab had arrived at the parking lot of the Aquarium Complex and when Vicki had paid the fare, they crossed towards the main building. Vicki pointed to the rescue building as they walked. "Henry and I were there last night and we heard a couple of guys talking about Orion Gaelan and by what they said it seemed like Gaelan may not have had any involvement with their activities." Vicki could see the main building, a sparkling glass structure over a grassy rise, and she put her hand on Coreen's arm to draw her to a halt.

"You know that I watched Gaelan change form on the beach yesterday, right?" Coreen nodded mutely, her eyes wide. "Well last night, when we were at the pool by the rescue buildings, there was another selchie there. He came to speak to Henry, transforming right in the water. From what he said, it seems like there is a small community of them here in Vancouver and on the Island, but obviously they maintain a really low profile."

"Vicki, I'm not going to waltz in and ask to see the Selchies." Coreen said indignantly. "I have learned a few things you know."

"I know that Coreen, I just want to bring you up to speed." _Well not exactly up to speed, I am not going to tell you about Strathcona or Jared or my God that little baby. Those things are Henry's to tell, when and if he sees fit._ "Just be careful what you say, and keep your eyes and ears open, alright?"

"Uh-huh," Coreen said as they moved towards the door of the Aquarium building. She pulled open the door and motioned Vicki to precede her.

After a brief stop at the information desk, they were ushered through to the office of Dr. Silvia Merino, director of the Aquarium. It was obvious from the outset that Doctor Merino felt that fielding the inquiries of a PI was beneath her exalted station as a director, and soon enough she had sloughed them off onto a subordinate, Alex Thomas.

Alex proved to be a co-operative and gentle young man who showed them around the facility and answered their questions in great detail in his quiet and calm voice.

Yes, they often received rescue mammals from other locations. Yes, they had received a seal that had been injured by a propeller from the Victoria Society yesterday. Yes, he was familiar with the name Orion Gaelan. Yes, he had met him on occasion. No, he was not sure of his exact address, but he had the impression that he had moved to the Island some months ago. No, there was no way of knowing how many individual seals they had seen in the pools over the last few months, they re-habilitated and released as soon as they could. Yes, they sometimes did implant transceivers in order to track some animals but certainly not all.

During the whole interview Vicki was struck by Alex's calm demeanor and by the patient warmth of his dark brown eyes. _Dark brown eyes, like Gaelan's when he had looked back at her on the beach from the thigh deep water._

Vicki watched him carefully as on a hunch, she asked the question out of left field, "Have you ever heard of the Selchies, Alex?"

Coreen looked at her sharply and then back to Alex, speculation on her face.

_If I didn't have police training, I might have missed the body language shift,_ she thought. _He's good; I'll give him that,_ but she had seen the swift and instinctive withdrawal. _I suppose if I had spent my life hiding what I was, I'd be good at it as well._

"Selchies? You mean the legends of the seal people?" he asked after a brief hesitation, sitting back and crossing his arms in front of his body.

_Nice, _she thought, _not exactly a denial that he knows anything, just a slight display of confusion about the question. But he is distancing himself from us. Close to home, too close to home. There is something in his voice. I wish Henry was here. _She smiled briefly._ He would be able to tell just by snuffing around a bit, though he would probably take exception to me using those exact words. _Her smile broadened_. _

"Well I think that is all for now, Mr. Thomas," Vicki said. She handed him her card and said, "If you think of anything else you can call me at the cellular number listed. Thank you for your time."

Vicki and Coreen walked out to the seawall and headed back towards Georgia Street. "It'll only take maybe twenty minutes to get back to the hotel," Vicki said, watching a couple of joggers approach on the other side of the footpath.

"I'm good with that," Coreen replied, "I feel like I haven't had any exercise at all over the last couple of days. Maybe we could grab some lunch on Robson…"

Vicki nodded her agreement, "Sure, I want to give Mike a call and touch base. I have a few ideas that I want to bounce off him, and I am going to have to break the news to him that there is a freaky element to this case."

"You mean the Selchies? Speaking of which, Alex Thomas, did you think that…"

"That he was a Selchie?" Vicki interrupted."Yeah, that is exactly what I thought; in fact, I think that he is the selchie that Henry spoke with last night. When I close my eyes and remember the voice, I am almost sure."

"Well, I want to hit the library downtown this afternoon. I want to follow up on some newspaper stories in the archives. This Joseph Fletcher guy, he gives me the chills."

"I want to get a couple of hours down time after lunch, I promised Henry that we would be there this evening when he wakes up, and I'm starting to think we may want to pay a visit to the Island."

"You did get in pretty late this morning," Coreen said arching an eyebrow in inquiry.

"Don't even start with me, missy," Vicki grinned in response.


	34. Chapter 34

Liath regarded Mike from where she sat next to her cousin Orion.

Michael was a good man, she knew. She wanted to tell him what she was. He already loved her, of this she was sure, but would he love all of her?

As much as she had been quick to refute Orion's angry words earlier, she feared. She feared that Michael loved only the Liath he knew, the musician, the volunteer, the activist. She feared that when she told him what she was, showed him what she was, that the light of love would vanish from his eyes. She feared that he would grow cold and distant or worse, clutching and possessive as had Linda Gaelan.

Orion had begged her not to tell Mike her secret, not now, and in the end she had promised to wait, as a condition of Orion giving Michael his story. Now she regretted that promise bitterly.

Mike could see the fear in Orion's eyes and the sorrow in Liath's, the same brown liquid gazes, troubled and beautiful.

Mike rose to his feet and reached out his hand to Orion, who after a brief hesitation took it in a short handshake. "Thank you for the information Mr. Gaelan; I appreciate your cooperation. I am going to go back to the station and add this information to my notes. I would like you to keep yourself available for further interviews over the next few of days, if possible."

"Orion will be staying here for the next couple of weeks," Clare said with a quick glance at Orion. "You can get in touch with him at this number."

Mike could not shake the feeling that there was information he was not aware of, passing between those three. Some private communication that he was not privy to and he didn't like it.

He turned to Liath, "Good, I'm going to go then. Liath will you be going to Maxine Beaumont's?" Mike asked. He was worried for Liath, _she looks so sad and upset and her eyes are so sorrowful. I wish I could just take her in my arms and…_

Liath rose and crossed to Mike, taking him by the arm. "Yes," she said. "Her family will be flying in, in a few hours. I want to go and do what I can for her."

When they reached the door Mike turned and regardless of the eyes upon them, took her into a tender embrace, bending to kiss her and then brushing back the curling flyaway ends of her hair.

"I'll call you in a couple of hours," he said as she released him. Then he was through the door and descending the steps. His phone began to buzz when he was halfway down the front walk. He hauled it out of his pocket, glanced at the number, and flipping it open, brought it to his ear…"Vicki?"

***

Vicki looked at her watch, not quite 2:30 PM; she really wanted a chance to call Mike even though she also really wanted to sleep. _Less than five hours a night really doesn't do it for me._ She looked longingly at the freshly made bed; the plump pillows looked so inviting. _If I just laid down my head for a second…just for a few minutes…_

She pulled out her phone and pressed the speed dial then waited as the ringing started. _I have a lot that I need to tell Mike; I can't let him go on thinking that this is just a _normal _murder case. Oh great, now I'm starting to sound like Coreen; next I'll be thinking of everyone who doesn't shape-shift or drink blood as mundane. He needs to know about the Selchies, even though he is going to fucking hate it, and the big guy is no slouch, so I am pretty sure he is going to have a lot of info for me as well. I hate the way we left it last time I called. I need him to know that I've seen Henry and I understand why…why he…_

The familiar voice on the other end of the line answered with a gruff question, "Vicki?"

"Hey Mike, where are you, still on the island?" And then without waiting for his response she launched into, "Listen, about the other night…"

She could hear the sigh in his voice. "It's okay Vic. I guess I was a little outa line. It's just that I had just met up with Fang Boy and the thought of you travelling out to Vancouver to see him when I had just seen the state he was in…"

"I've seen Henry," she said abruptly and she could feel her ire rising as Mike spoke. _He has no right to tell me who I can and can't…Jeez Nelson, are you a slow learner or what?_

"I've seen Henry," she began again, "and we are…talking."

"Yeah, I'll just bet you were _talking,_ Vic. I saw him, remember, and I know…"

Mike started to wind up but she said "I know it was bad, Mike and I want to, I want to make things right."

_I fuckin' bet you've seen him the way I saw him, that terrible sorrow, that unremitting isolation, the resonating creeping power of that blood sucking, undead bastard…that poor bastard. Oh that's rich Celluci, he's probably going to eat Vicki's face and here you are feeling sorry for the Vampire Prince._

He was standing on the side walk in front of Liath's house with the cell pressed to his ear.

He looked back at the house and could see Liath standing in the window watching him, concern written on her face. Gaelan was standing behind her and he had the look of a man who was terrified. _What the hell could his wife have taken from him that left him this frightened?_ Mike thought.

Liath grasped Orion's hand as he started to move towards the door. "You have to trust him Orion," she said, though her own eyes followed Michael's tall frame as he began to pace up and down the sidewalk in front of her house under the sun of the afternoon sky.

"Liath, the woman he is talking to this Vic. I think she is the same woman who saw me change form in Stanley Park," Orion said lowly.

"I know," Liath said, her brown eyes full of sadness.

He ran a hand through his blond hair and then scrubbed at his face, willing his anger and confusion away.

"Mike, I got a call from Dave on the Sidorov murder, he sent me the scans of the files, so I know that Orion Gaelan's name is on the POI list, _again_. I want to pass along some information about him to you." Vicki spoke quickly, her tone businesslike and crisp. She had a lot of information to impart and had very little time to do it. She was pretty sure that Mike wasn't going to like any of it.

"Yeah well you're not the only _hot shot_ in town Vic. As luck would have it, I just finished interviewing Orion Gaelan," Mike told her.

"You know where he is," came her reply. "Good, don't let him disappear before I can get to the Island."

"He's not going anywhere Vicki. I know where he is staying and in fact I am standing in front of the house. I can see him watching me out of the God-damned window." Mike looked up at Liath and Gaelan standing side by side in the window, their liquid brown eyes watching.

He turned away and leaned against his rental car, his attention focused once more on the phone he held in his hand.

"Yeah, well I never got to tell you the last time I called, but his wife told me that he left her because…"

"…because she stole something from him," Mike finished.

"He told you that?" Vicki asked momentarily nonplussed.

"Yeah, he said that, whatever it was that she had taken from him, that she was using it to blackmail him into staying with her," Mike reported. He felt a little smug, that he had already figured out what the _great Victoria Nelson_, was calling to tell him.

"And did he happen to mention what it was that she had stolen?" Vicki prodded.

"Nope, he didn't say, but I can tell you one thing Vic, the guy is terrified to let her anywhere near him again. He just said that it was personal and that the police wouldn't be able to help him. Why? Do you know what it was?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, and you're not going to like it, Mike. She stole his skin." There was an expectant moment of silence and then…

"Come on Vic, I can still see the guy. He looks just fine to me, in fact there's not a mark on him," Mike said, pushing himself away from the car and beginning to pace again.

"I'm not joking Mike. Orion Gaelan is a selchie and his wife Linda stole his skin and hid it to force him to stay with her."

He stopped dead on the street, the hand that held the phone tightening on the device. "What the fuck is a selchie Vicki and I swear if you tell me that it sucks blood…"

"Don't be an asshole Celluci, when you were growing up didn't you ever hear the legends about the Seal Maiden?"

"Seal Maidens, seal maidens, nope, must have missed that one. Of course if I'd know that every fucking mythological creature from every horror story ever written was going to stop by my life later on, _starting with that black-eyed bastard_, well maybe I would have paid closer attention," he said, trying for disbelief and failing miserably.

Striving for calm, Vicki continued, "He's a type of shape-shifter, a being who can change from human to seal and back again."

"You have got to be shitting me, turns into a seal rather than a wolf? You've been hanging out with Captain Canine again haven't you?"

"You know what Mike? If you don't believe me that's fine; just don't say that I didn't try to tell you," Vicki said hotly.

_Seal Maiden, seal maiden_, the image floated through his consciousness. Mike glanced up to see Liath's pale face watching him through the window.

Vicki was speaking again a little more calmly, and he dragged his attention back to the phone. "Look Mike, you can believe me or not, but I saw Orion Gaelan change into a seal with my own eyes on the beach in Stanley park, and I saw a seal change into a man in the rescue pool at the Aquarium in Vancouver and this, none of this, has anything to do with Henry!"

_Seal maiden, seal maiden, green waters gliding by, the waving deep green fronds of the kelp forest, flying on flippered wings through an emerald sky…_

He glanced at the house again and saw that Orion had resumed his place behind Liath, his hand on her shoulder. Two sets of deep brown eyes watched him intently and he thought, he thought…

_Fuck…Liath is Orion's cousin; that was what she had said…Seal maiden._

"Fine, I have to go Vic. I'll call you later okay? After I have written up my notes and seen what's new at the station, I'll call, but…I have to go."

Mike ran a hand through his hair. He desperately didn't want this strangeness to reach out and touch what he had found in Liath. _Selchie_…_Orion Gaelan was some kind of a monster, according to Vicki, a fucking freak just like Henry and Liath, beautiful and gentle Liath, she was his cousin._

***

Vicki looked at the phone in her hand and then looked at Coreen. "He hung up on me, _again_," she said sourly.

"Maybe he thought that he had left all the _freaky stuff_," she made air quotes with her fingers when she said freaky stuff, "behind, when you stopped talking to him." Coreen offered. "I mean, you know, Henry was gone and you weren't talking and maybe his life just went back to boring old mundane stuff."

"Yeah, maybe, but I know him, there is something else there that is bothering him." Coreen closed her laptop down.

"You done?" Vicki asked.

Coreen nodded, "Yeah I want to hit the library downtown for a bit and look through the newspaper files. This Fletcher character is really bugging me."

Vick had not told Coreen about Henry's involvement with Gillian, and she would never share what she had seen in Jared's room. Somehow the fact that Henry had trusted her with those parts of his life made them intensely private and personal. Somewhere last night she had made a choice; she would keep his secrets.

"I want to grab a couple hours sleep. Mike said that Orion Gaelan is on the Island and that he knows where he is staying. I want to meet with Henry before we head over to Victoria."

***

Mike dropped the phone in his pocket, and looked back at the house. Liath and Orion still stood in the window.

_I should go in, I should go in and confront them, but then they would have to answer and then I would…know._

He turned and opened the car door, throwing himself behind the wheel and turning over the engine. _I need time; I need time to think this through before I do anything rash._ He could his Nonna's voice admonishing him, "before you do anything Michael; you need to take time to think!"

Without looking back to the figures watching, he drove off._ I'll go back to the station, write up my report, send Vic a copy. I'll go back to the station, and it will clear my head._

After a few minutes his phone began to ring. He pulled it from his pocket. It was Liath's number, he knew. He couldn't answer, he couldn't, he listened to it ring until it finally stopped and then he put the cell back in his pocket.

_Seal maiden…_


	35. Chapter 35

_Seal maiden._ As he pulled into the lot of the police station, he suddenly realized that he had no memory of the drive here, though what he _had_ been thinking about he was not sure. _Maybe I was just trying not to think, _he admitted to himself_._ He pulled into the "Visitors" spot and sat, just sat for a moment, staring at the blank wall of the building in front of him. _Seal maiden. Vicki said she watched him change in front of her eyes…_

His brow furrowed and he gripped the steering wheel with both hands_. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't. Liath, Liath is the best thing that has happened to me, in a very long time. I don't need this shit, I don't need any of this freaky shit,_ he thought.

He un-buckled his seat belt and stepped out of the car, closing the door with just a hint too much force. The ever present sea breeze of the Island, now warm with the afternoon brightness, caught at his coat, flapping it around his legs. He thrust his hands in his pockets and felt the slim, smooth shape of his phone, _if it rang, if she called again, could I answer?_

Once inside the building, the familiar bustle of law enforcement reached out and surrounded him. The muffled conversations, the shuffle of people engaged in what they were doing, the easy camaraderie of those who were united in a battle. He felt the world, the_ real_ world, solidify around him. He felt his bearings slowly re-establish themselves.

He headed first to the kitchenette and strong…_Vicki, the image of his partner, grinning over a cup of strong black_…coffee and the ubiquitous plain cake donut. Then he headed to his temporary desk and the reassuring bulk of his file.

He pulled out his notebook and flipped through to the notes he had made on Orion Gaelan's statement. Drawing out a police form from the desk drawer, he settled in to write up his report. He had no more than a paragraph on the page when a shadow crossed between him and the light; he glanced up to see Pellerin standing in front of his desk.

"_Mon Dieu,_ you look a little rattled, _Michel._" He gave the French pronunciation to Mike's name. "What have you got?"

"Just finished interviewing a person of interest from the Sidorov case, and I want to get the notes in order and into my files," Mike said, around a mouthful of donut.

"Ah, _oui_, did you hear that there has been another homicide, well another _double_ homicide actually, that has every indication of being connected to this case? Execution style," he reported, dropping into the language of his work, "Two male vics, known activists both, single shot to the head, pro hit, I doubt CSI will find a thing but they are at the scene on Galiano now."

"_Galiano_?" Mike asked.

"Galiano, it's one of the Gulf Islands, I forget you are not a local boy, _excusez-moi_."

Suddenly, the donut felt heavy in Mike's stomach, he felt his instincts twist.

Pellerin parked his butt on the edge of Mike's desk and pointed to a report that lay on the top of his in-basket. "Preliminary but most of the info is there."

"Two activists, on one of the Gulf Islands," Mike repeated, as he thought back to Gaelan's story of what he had overheard. _Two activists who had purportedly executed Sidorov, they were to have flown into Victoria at dawn and then Ben Turner was going to sail with them to a Gulf…_

Pellerin's eyes were sharp as he picked up the report and read through the top page, "It was clean as a whistle, obviously a professional hit. One shot to the head, both sitting up nice and pretty in deck chairs, staring out over the ocean. Neighbor found them." He flipped the page, "He says there was a flock of ravens flying around in the trees that just wouldn't shut up, calling and flapping around until he went over to check. He said he thought it might be a dead deer or coyote. Poor guy got quite a shock. Ah _oui_, here are their names, Joseph LeBlanc and…"

"Archer Ferris." Mike finished.

Pellerin raised a brow, "_Oui_, but how did you know?"

"You better take a look at the statement that I took from Orion Gaelan this afternoon."

***

Ben Turner was frightened, a numbed kind of terror that left him disjointed and shell-shocked. He couldn't help but review the last few hours in his mind.

_When he had come back from town in the battered old pick-up that belonged to the safe-house where Archer and Joseph were lying low, he remembered clearly how the gravel of the driveway had crunched under the tires, as he pulled up beside the A-frame and slammed the truck into park. He had felt across the seat for the paper grocery sack of milk and bread that he had just bought, but his eyes were on the flock of ravens that flapped and rolled across the sky. There were a great number of them all cawing and calling and dive-bombing low to the ground._

Weird_, he had thought, _must be something dead, down by the water_. He had rounded the side of the house and called out to Joseph and Archer where they sat overlooking the ocean. He remembered that he had said, "Beautiful view eh, guys?" And he remembered the sudden sense of dread when they hadn't answered._

_The strident voices of the ravens had echoed in his ears when he had finally seen…when he had finally seen…_

_Fuck, I have to find Will_, he thought as he began walking away from the end of the Marina dock. It was a mile and a half to Will's place on foot; _please God let him be there._ The streets of downtown Victoria were full of tourists, but everyone seemed threatening somehow, as though they all knew…

He tried to remember, _he had left the bodies untouched and had walked woodenly back to the truck. He had thought, _what did I touch, what did I leave my fingerprints on? _But he couldn't seem to focus. Standing at the truck he had pulled off his t-shirt and had wiped down every surface he could think of in the truck, and then he had closed the door and returned to the A-frame. He had stepped gingerly between the bodies of his friends, who sat with unseeing eyes staring out at the rolling waves of the ocean. Once he was inside the house, he had retraced his steps, wiping clean everything that he could remember touching. _Fuck, I wasn't here more than ten minutes before I went to the store._ The thought brought him to a standstill, _Christ the fucking hit man would have probably done me too if I had been here, thank God I went into town!_ He had picked up the grocery sack and made his way across the lawn, under the open sky, filled with the calls of the ravens, to the dock and the small vessel tied up there. They had arrived only a few hours before; he had cast off from the dock and had then sailed away, back to Victoria to the Marina._

He picked up his pace as he thought, _Fuck, they know who I am. I need a safe place. I fucking hope that Will is home._

When Will's puzzled face appeared in the doorway in response to his frenzied pounding, Ben pushed past him into the hallway.

"Close it man; lock it. We are fucked; we are_ so_ fucked…"

***

Joseph Fletcher had received the _shooter_ in the library. Matthews had ushered the man in and then closed the door softly behind him. Resuming his place outside the door, he folded his hands together at his waist and stared off, waiting for the next summons.

Joseph eyed the tall man from where he sat ensconced in the tufted leather chair, behind the mahogany plain of his desktop. He was silent for a moment and to the _shooter's_ credit, he did not fidget too much under the cold blue gaze.

Fletcher cleared his throat and finally said, "I take it there was no problem."

"Smooth as silk Mr. Fletcher, I delivered your message, to both of them."

"And no collateral damages?" Fletcher raised a brow?

"No sir, they were alone in the house, I checked."

"Hmmm, good work, Bellevue. The payment has already been transferred to your account. Matthews will see you out. There is a car waiting to take you to the airport.

"The _shooter _nodded once and, recognizing the dismissal, moved to the door.

The dapper, silver-haired Fletcher rose from his seat and paced up and down the room's confines as he waited for Matthews to return.

_Those stupid little fucks. Did they think, did they think for a single minute, that they could fuck with the family and get away with it? I don't give a rat's ass about Sidorov, I never did like the fucking Russian anyways, but nobody, nobody fucks with me._

He felt the familiar flush of heat to his loins, the tightening of his flesh that the exercise of his power always brought him, and he dropped his hand to fondle the hardening member.

When Matthews returned, he was seated behind his desk once more.

Fletcher called to him and when the man stood before him he said. "I want you to arrange for a whore for this evening, Matthews, someone young and _compliant,_ and anonymous, like the last one." The cold blue eyes searched Mathews's gaze; the man trembled but he held his face impassive. _Good_, Fletcher thought, _he is terrified and repulsed but he won't betray me; he wouldn't dare. Somehow Matthews's revulsion at the things that he derived pleasure from, well it added a certain kind of _spice_ to the dish._

"Call Jared, we don't want a local girl." Matthews nodded and turned to leave the room, closing the door softly behind him.

***

It was becoming dark when Mike left the station, emerging into the twilight; he crossed the lot to his car. The sky held the deepening blue of the night, descending over the final washes of yellow and orange from where the sun was drowning itself in the sea.

He tossed the Fletcher file and the notes on the Sidorov case on the seat. He reached in his pocket where his phone was silently waiting. He had received two more calls from Liath's number and he had not been able to bring himself to answer either. He was tired and sad and he wanted nothing more than Liath's welcoming arms and soft voice, but he couldn't. He couldn't face that right now. He didn't want to ask the question and he didn't want to hear her answer.

Fast food sack in hand, he arrived at his hotel room, and dropping the keys and bag on the table, he shrugged out of his coat and hit the shower. He let the water run long and hot and hoped that its warmth would ease the ache that he felt in his chest. A half an hour later, he emerged and, turning on the lamps in the now dark room, settled in the chair with the now cold burger and fries in front of him.

He dialed the number and when her heard the phone pick up he asked, "Vicki?"

***

The cab was old, _vintage_, according to Coreen; its worn interior was certainly lovingly maintained.

"You know Vicki, you would never see a cab of this _vintage_ in Toronto," Coreen said as they drove slowly along Denman Street in the bumper-to-bumper evening traffic.

"No shit, this thing would have been rusted out years ago in TO," Vicki said, "The salt on the roads would just destroy it."

Coreen changed the subject abruptly, "So tell me what Henry's place is like?" she asked. She was excited and there was not much that was more frightening to Vicki than Coreen when she got wound up, so she answered quickly.

"It's nice Coreen. It overlooks the city as well as the beach; hardwood floors, stainless steel shutters," she rolled off the description. Coreen nodded and looked at her expectantly. Vicki searched her brain, "uh, there's a nice kitchen and a spare bedroom; oh, and a spiral staircase that leads up to a roof garden."

"Henry has a garden? Coreen exclaimed. "Well I guess there are a number of night blooming plants, moonflower, night blooming jasmine, Angel's trumpet…"

Vicki was majorly relieved when her phone began to ring, saving her from a discussion of the horticultural issues surrounding the cultivation of nocturnal plants. As she fished it out of her purse Coreen turned to look out the window of the cab at downtown Vancouver passing by in the falling dusk.

"Mike," Vicki said "What's up?"

"Not much Vic, I said I would give you a call back when I got my notes into order. I am sending you copies of the interview with Gaelan. He mentions two activists, Archer Fisher and Joseph LeBlanc, who were flying into Victoria this morning at dawn. There was some overheard conversation that links them to the Sidorov murder."

"Overheard by Orion Gaelan?" Vicki asked.

"Yes and there's more, they both turned up dead on Galiano Island this afternoon."

Vicki made a low whistling sound as Mike continued.

"It was a hit; all the earmarks of the mob and on Vancouver Island that means Joseph Fletcher. We're pretty sure he's connected to it, probably put out the hit."

"_Joseph Fletcher_, yeah Coreen dug up some connections between him and Sidorov," Vicki said, paused for a moment and then added, "Henry has a bit of a grudge on for the guy as well."

"I thought you said the Bastard Prince had nothing to do with this Vicki?" Mike asked tightly.

"Did I?" Vicki asked sweetly.

He was too tired and worn to argue. "I had Liam Kavanaugh, my contact in Greater Vancouver, send copies of the Sidorov files and all the reports that are coming in on the Galiano hits…down to Kate and Dave, and I talked him into blind-cc-ing Coreen's e-mail address."

"Good man," Vicki said fondly, "I'll take a look at it when we get to Henry's. He is going to look over the tapes that you gave me of the crime scene at the Toronto Aquarium, see if he can pick up something."

"Oh great Vic, I risk my career, not to mention Crowley's wrath, for the vampire's viewing pleasure."

Vicki chuckled and then said, "Yeah it goes that way sometimes."

There was a long pause and Vicki felt as though Mike wanted to say something further.

"Thanks Mike, you okay? You sound kinda down."

"Nah, I'm good tired is all, I should go for a run, but I think I'll just turn in early. Vic…about Orion Gaelan, you're sure what you saw, right?" The pain in his voice was plain and Vicki felt puzzled; she couldn't discern its source.

"I saw it myself Mike, in broad daylight and then another time later that night; the Selchies exist. There is a small community of them here, from what I understand. The environmental terrorists have tried to get them to take part in their activities, but violence is apparently not in their nature."

"Vic, be careful around the fanged-one; he is pretty chancy right now."

"Yeah, I'm hanging up Mike," she said as she disconnected, just as the cab pulled up in front of Henry's building. The last rays of the sun were fading on the horizon as Vicki paid the fare.

"Perfect timing," she said to Coreen.


	36. Chapter 36

The sun's demise triggered the return of the vampire; his consciousness flowed back into being on the wings of the dark. As it had been for far more than a hundred thousand nights, his body arched upwards from the sheets as he was suddenly once more in residence. His lungs expanded with his first indrawn breath of the dark, his first breath of life.

He knew at once that the weight of his despair had lifted. He was aware of its absence even as his eyes fluttered open and his soul coalesced behind his gaze. His despair had vanished; his _Chosen_ was near…_his Chosen_.

As the day's paralysis faded, he turned slowly to his side, curling inward around the glow of pleasure at his center; _his Chosen was near._ Sorting through his memories of the previous night he heard her voice again and rejoiced,_ she said that she would be here, when I woke._ He threw back the covers and rose.

Barefooted, he crossed the room and, hitting the button on the remote, watched the stainless steel shutters that provided his protection from the day soundlessly and slowly retract, revealing to his view the blue tinged dark of the early evening. Below him, his city already glittered with thousands of lights in the new made dark.

_She was here, in the city below him._ _The day, that was her province, had drawn to a close. Now she would join him in the night, perhaps she was on her way to him even now, amidst the twinkling lights below. Chosen, his, his Vicki,_ a smile flitted across his face. Memory surfaced, his beloved's face as she looked fearlessly into his eyes across his prey's shoulder, _this is what she needs to see, what she needs to know._ Her touch, calling him back to her when he was lost to the blood, her touch calling him back to her calm gaze when he opened his eyes to her golden visage.

Daring much, he had withdrawn his fangs and he had asked her then, Come to me. Do you wish to taste as well? To taste what it is to be vampire…and though she had refused, she had thought; she had paused to consider.

_Chosen,_ in all his long years he had never taken one such. There had been lovers who he held dearer than life itself. There had been friends that he held forever close to his heart, but never, never in all those centuries, had he given himself to a _Chosen._ _How had she done this? How had she taken him to such depths of despair that he had welcomed the oblivion of the dawn and then in a single night had tumbled all his barriers?_ He had brought her close, would bring her closer still, as close as any human could come to one of his kind, save for those who were destined for the blood, those to be made Childe, _childe…child_.

That thought brought another memory, an infant lying cold and dying on a bloody mattress in a Strathcona hellhole. He felt again the beast's icy fury, his own rage against the Fates who would work such an injustice on an innocent. He had, in defiance of death, breathed his own life into the human babe, had given his blood to the child, and in so doing had made another…another foundling.

His generous lips lifted in an un-repentant smile,_ Augustus had been very angry with him,_ and yet he knew that the old man would eventually come round. There were too many years between them, too much history. In spite of Corie, or maybe because of him, in the end Augustus had agreed to foster the babe.

He felt his way gingerly along the new made link, _gentle, gentle, ahh, he sleeps contentedly._

The buzzing of his cell phone vibrating across the top of his night table brought him back to himself. He crossed from the window to his bed, in a blur.

"Fitzroy," he answered from long habit.

"Henry? It's Vicki. We're outside your building. Call down, will you, and tell the security guard to let us in?" Then he heard only the sound of the disconnection.

_Chosen…_

***

"I just wanted to give him the heads up, Coreen," Vicki said as she closed the phone, "You know, so he is prepared when we show up at his door."

"Uhh, okay," Coreen responded, "That seems kinda more formal than in Toronto but…"

"Last night, he was pretty shocked to see me and well, to tell the truth, I don't want a repeat of that performance tonight when he opens his door."

They were buzzed in through the doors of the building into the lobby and crossed to Tanya who stood at ease behind the desk.

"Vicki Nelson and Coreen…" Vicki began

"Oh yes, Vicki and Coreen," Tanya smiled. "Mr. Fitzroy just called down to say I was to let you through without a problem; he is expecting you. I guess he liked the Birthday cake eh? All is forgiven now?" Tanya asked.

"Something like that," Vicki replied. She turned to regard Coreen sternly. The Goth stood quietly with a demure smile, rocking from heel to toe, as though she were absorbed in the pattern of the floor tiles. When she looked up at Vicki's voice, her face bore an unrepentant, who me? expression. It was all Vicki could do to not laugh out loud.

***

The door of the elevator slid back and they were met by the vampire, who awaited them in the atrium, the door of his softly-lit condo open behind him.

He moved first to Vicki, leaning close with a smile and placing a kiss on her cheek. _Chosen._ He breathed deeply of her scent and then turned to Coreen.

"Welcome to my new home, Coreen," he smiled boyishly, and the girl literally flew into his arms.

"I'm so glad, Henry," she whispered in his ear as he held her close. "I'm so…glad."

He tightened his arms briefly in recognition of her concern, and then stepping back away, made a slight bow and motioned that they should precede him into the condo.

There were several minutes spent in the obligatory tour of the condo, and Coreen, while she made suitable noises of appreciation, was carefully observing Henry's behavior. He stayed close to Vicki, very close, in a way that he hadn't, before. It was nothing overt and yet he seemed to need her proximity somehow. Vicki, for the most part, seemed to feel the same, and Coreen noticed that she touched him more frequently. Their hips touched when they stood at the window admiring the view; her palm lay on his back when she passed by him; she laid her fingers on his forearm to attract his attention before she spoke. _Yes, she touched him a lot more,_ Coreen thought. She could sense that something rudimentary had changed between them and she was glad…glad for them both.

The conversation was easy and light and humorous, though Coreen could feel that things were not quite the way they had been when Toronto was Henry's.

"Vicki said that you have a roof garden," Coreen said when they had returned to the living room. "It must be awesome, to have a private sanctuary like that."

"It provides a very peaceful and private retreat for me," Henry said. "And the view is magnificent; would you like to see it?"

_I saw plenty of it last night_. Vicki thought of the heavens pouring down their grieving tears as she had seen just what her pride and fear had wrought upon the vampire. But she smiled at Henry's enthusiasm as he jumped up and showed Coreen to the spiral stair.

Vicki had to admit, as she emerged out on to the roof under the night sky, that the cool air, the rustling of the leaves and branches, and the sweet scents of the pale blossoms were striking.

She tilted back her head and looked up to the stars, faded points of light high above in the dark, remembering once when Henry had described how they appeared to him.

She moved to the railing to look out into the heavy darkness that hung over the water, her eyesight too poor, she knew, to pick up the subtle lighting of the water's surface. When she turned her gaze to the south she could see where the arm of the shore curved outwards, brilliantly lit with the lights of the city. As she stood watching the traffic streaming across the Granville Street Bridge, she could hear Henry and Coreen's voices behind her discussing something called "_Cestrum Nocturnam,_" the training of the vines over the trellises of the garden, and the sweet mild scent of its blossoms.

Vicki closed her eyes, inhaling the fragrances around her, her heart contracting at the sudden thought that, _sooner or later I won't be able to see any of this. Sooner or later, my sense of smell will be all that I…_

Drawn to her, by the change in her heartbeat, Henry's arms came around her waist as he came up behind her. This was a liberty that he might not have allowed himself in the past. She could feel his presence behind her and for a brief moment she leaned back, against his strength.

"We should go inside, Vicki. You're cold and there are a lot of things to discuss. I have a few calls I need to make."

"You're right," she said, as she turned to him and he could see it, could see the sudden hunger in her eyes. It blazed out like the beacons that flashed over the dark water and it was just as quickly shuttered. "We should go in, there's a lot to talk about."

When they were seated again in the living room, Coreen set up her laptop on the coffee table and pulled up the video from the Parker drowning, at the Toronto Aquarium. Henry rose and came around to stand behind Coreen, arms folded across his chest.

"Rajani sets the time of death at around midnight, and we know that the salt water pools at the Aquarium are the only salt water facilities locally," Vicki explained.

"And your Mr.…Parker had salt water in his lungs?" Henry asked.

"Right," Coreen confirmed. "But we've been over this security footage like a thousand times, especially from 10:00 PM through to 2:00 AM and there's…nothing."

The frustration was clearly evident in her voice.

"Play it, Coreen," Henry asked. He leaned forward, resting his hands on the sofa back, behind the Goth, his eyes intent as he watched the screen over her shoulder. He had her fast-forward. "Stop it here," he said, and then pointed to the surface of the pool. "See here, this is the reflection of the moon shining on the surface of the water. It is full." He circled the wavering round shape with his index finger. "Can you reverse it a bit Coreen?" he asked. She complied and he watched intently. "Here, stop it here." He reached out to touch the screen again, "See here, the moon is just over half full. Now fast-forward again please…and stop here again. You can see that now we are past the section where the moon was full, and the cameras are recording a little more than half moon again. I would say that this security tape…"

"Was recorded at two separate times. They had the cameras record a pre-recorded tape while they drowned Parker," Vicki exclaimed.

Henry nodded, "That would be my guess." He flashed Vicki a smile. "I would also say that this suggests…"

"Someone on the inside, with the expertise to override the security cameras," Coreen finished.

"Well now we know how they did it, thanks to the _Master of Moonlight_ here," Vicki smiled as Henry executed a short bow.

"I'll pass this info on to Mike. And speaking of Mike, he found Orion Gaelan on the Island; he spoke to him."

So you _are_ planning to go to Vancouver Island?" Henry asked.

Vicki didn't want to be parted from Henry so soon, but she felt that she needed to follow up and meet with Orion Gaelan.

"Yeah, I thought we'd grab the ferry first thing tomorrow morning, I know that there is another Vampire on Vancouver Island, Henry, so I guess that that means that you won't be able to…"

Henry could sense her distress and it both warmed him and caused him pain. He cleared his throat and said, "Actually Vicki, following on our _conversation_ in regards to Gillian last night…"

Coreen looked from Henry to Vicki and then back to Henry, her dark hair flipping back and forth as she shifted her head, curious immediately and picking up on the change in Henry's inflection.

"…when I returned home, I contacted Augustus," Henry said.

"Again?" Vicki asked, "I thought he was kinda pissed off at you about the…" she cast a glance at the Goth, "about the…you know."

"May I continue?" Henry asked with a sigh.

"Please," Vicki and Coreen said as one.

"I contacted the Community and asked them to arrange for a dispensation for me to travel to Victoria. I need to call back now and see if the arrangements have been made."

"A _dispensation_, like from the Pope?" Vicki asked her brows rising.

"You mean like permission to enter the other vampire's city, territory, whatever?" Coreen's gaze was guileless but brimming with curiosity. Henry realized that his _Chosen_ wasn't the only one who would be learning more about him.

"Yes, but it is more complicated than gaining permission. A diplomatic safe zone is established and agreed to by both parties. It is inside that safe zone that the visitor, in this case myself, is expected to stay, which basically guarantees that the resident and the visitor never meet. Sometimes permission is granted to hunt in the prescribed area and sometimes not. In the latter case, volunteers from the Community will usually provide."

Coreen's eyes widened at this concept, but Henry was already continuing.

"In this way our territorial _issues_, can be _managed_…" his voice trailed off. _I have just disclosed more details about the lives of vampires that most humans ever know,_ he thought.

He retrieved his phone from his drawing table and moved towards the bedroom. "This shouldn't take too long."

Vicki and Coreen looked at one another, each lost in consideration of how different the constraints on Henry's activities were than their own.

"_I'm not a fucking vampire, Your Grace. I don't need your leave to travel to Vancouver!"_ Vicki remembered saying the words to an overwrought Henry on the roof in the pouring rain. She was shocked now to learn how close to Henry's reality her words had been.

They could hear the soft murmur of Henry's voice from the bedroom. Occasionally a word or a phrase would come through more clearly, and once they heard him say sharply, "That is _most_ unusual," and then a moment later, "I'm not a _newborn_, of course I can handle it."

A few moments later Henry returned to the living room with his phone in hand. He looked less than happy, but he said. "I have been granted permission to enter the territory of the Victoria _resident_."

"So why no _Mr. Happy face?_" Vicki asked.

Henry crossed to the window to look out over the water and Vicki was sharply reminded of seeing him stand so back in Toronto. Eventually Henry spoke.

"Adrienna Morris is Victoria's current resident; she has been there for a _very_ long time. She is _very_ old, nearly twice as old as me."

"So she is very powerful," Coreen interjected.

"Exactly," Henry replied. And he shifted uneasily.

_I don't like where this is going,_ Vicki thought. _Another bitch vampire to mess with Henry. What? Fucking mommy-dearest Christina wasn't enough? No, now we have to have Adrienna._

"She has granted a dispensation for me, and the Community has made all of the arrangements, pending my agreement to her two stipulations.

"Which are?" Vicki asked. _I definitely don't like how on edge Henry looks._

The first is that I refrain from hunting while in her territory. This is common and to be expected, especially because our territories actually abut each other. Augustus will have made other arrangements." He paused and then, glancing at his two human companions, continued. "Her second stipulation is more unusual. She is insisting on a face to face meeting between us."

"But I thought you said the whole idea was to maintain a…comfortable distance between the two vampires," Coreen asked, puzzled.

Henry nodded and began to pace up and down, in front of the windows. "It is," he said shortly, "But apparently Adrienna has been doing a little research into her _new_ neighbor, and to paraphrase Augustus' young assistant, she wants to _scope me out_."

Vicki crossed to Henry and laid a calming if somewhat possessive hand on his arm. He clasped it with his own, bringing her knuckles to his lips in an almost unconscious gesture that Coreen's sharp eyes did not fail to miss.

Vicki's nerves went into overdrive at the vampire's evident discomfort. "So this more powerful, older vampire is insisting that you _submit_ to a face to face meeting, confrontation, _whatever_, when you enter her territory," she growled out. Henry nodded.

"And when is this meeting supposed to take place?" Vicki asked.

Henry breathed out a sigh. "In less than four hours time."


	37. Chapter 37

Twenty minutes later Henry was hustling Vicki and Coreen into the elevator. As they crowded in together into the dark paneled space along with Henry's hastily packed bag, he said, "There will be a car waiting for us downstairs. We will detour to your hotel and you will have time to pack your bags and check out, but you must hurry."

"I've never been on a seaplane before," Coreen said, her eyes dancing with excitement. "Have you Vicki?"

"Never," Vicki answered in a substantially less enthusiastic tone, and then turning to Henry said, "You Hank?"

"Yes," Henry replied, his eyes focused on the lit numbers on the panel of buttons. "In the early 50's I was involved with a group of painters who would retreat to the northern parts of Ontario to work. We often used pontoon planes to land on the lakes. I remember once…well that doesn't matter now." He paused as the door to the elevator slid open.

When Vicki and Coreen had exited, he crossed to the security desk to speak with Tanya. He was turning away after having explained that he may be away for a few days when Tanya said, "I can see the resemblance now."

"Pardon?" Henry asked.

"The resemblance, between you and your sister, I can see it now."

"_My _sister?" Henry repeated in an even more puzzled tone, glancing to Vicki and Coreen. Coreen raised her hand to wiggle her fingers in the vampire's direction. Henry's brows lifted, but when he turned back to Tanya he said with a smile, "Oh, you mean _that_ sister."

They headed to the door and as Coreen passed the security desk she rolled her dark eyes and shook her head silently indicating to Tanya just what _her_ opinion of big brothers was.

Emerging onto the sidewalk they saw a black limousine in the no-parking zone, in front of the building. As soon as they appeared, the driver got out of the car and, coming around to the passenger side, opened the wide double doors to the passenger compartment.

He did not extend his hand to Henry but doffed his cap and said, "Mr. Fitzroy? I am Thomas Rogers, your driver. I was told that you will have one or two stops to make on the way?"

"Just one, Thomas," Henry replied as he urged Vicki and Coreen to pass by him. They slid across the leather seats of the luxuriously appointed interior. "I believe it is the _Georgia Annex_," Henry continued.

"Very Good Mr. Fitzroy, I know exactly where the _Annex _is."

Henry slipped into the cabin of the limo and Thomas closed the doors behind them with an unusually solid thud.

"Wow, these windows are tinted incredibly dark," Coreen said. "I can hardly see out."

Henry's reply was a mumbled "Mm-huh," as the limo pulled out into traffic, but once they were underway he said, "Uhhh, you're right Coreen; the Community usually maintains a vehicle which has been retrofitted especially for their vampire clients."

Henry opened a small panel in the door and flipped a switch. Vicki and Coreen watched as, noiselessly, what appeared to be steel sheets moved up into position from beneath all the windows including the one between the cabin and the driver. In a few seconds they were enclosed entirely in the complete dark.

Vicki drew in a very shaky breath, her hand reaching out blindly to come to rest on Henry's thigh. _This is like a tomb_, she thought.

"I'm sorry, one moment," she heard Henry's voice and then the sidelights came up in the cabin, a dim and golden light. Both Vicki and Coreen's pupils were entirely dilated and dark.

"As you can see, if a timeline is cut a little too close, these panels can be activated to keep the passenger from…"

"Bursting in flames? Being immolated alive? _Christ Henry_," Vicki sputtered.

"Unavoidable delays sometimes occur Vicki," Henry said gently. This equipment would enable the occupant to be transported to safety, even if the day overtook him."

Coreen's finger's touched the cool metal of the panels, "Have you ever used…"

"Upon occasion," Henry answered and then said, "Would you mind, if I lowered them now? I find it just a little claustrophobic."

"No, sure, go ahead," Coreen said.

Vicki quietly shook her head as the panels slid down and the faint lights of the Vancouver traffic streaming by could be seen once again through the heavily tinted glass.

Vicki felt her stomach clench; the reminder of how close destruction could so easily come to Henry, left her feeling queasy. It wasn't as though she didn't know what the sun could do and yet, the idea of him trapped inside this vehicle as the day overtook him…

"I don't suppose that there is a bar on this thing is there?" Vicki asked. "I suddenly feel like I need a drink.

Henry reached across to pull open a panel when at the last second Vicki stopped him. "Uhhh, first of all we're talking about, whiskey, right?" Henry shook his head and smiled and then opened the panel that tilted down to form a small shelf. Behind it, in a shallow compartment walled in the traditional mirrors, was a small mini bar. It was equipped with glasses and several rows of sparkling miniature liquor bottles; there was even ice.

"What did you think would be in the bar, Vicki?" Henry asked as he added a couple of cubes to the measure of scotch he had poured her.

"Well you know, maybe like…"

"Bagged blood?" Coreen suggested, a little too helpfully.

"Nooo," Vicki protested, "I wasn't thinking that," as she took the drink that Henry offered her.

"Oh, the bagged blood? Well, that's in this compartment over here," he said, reaching across Vicki and not quite managing to keep his grin in check.

Coreen started to giggle and Vicki punched Henry, hard in the arm. "Fuck you Fitzroy," she said without rancor, before joining the laughter.

A half an hour later they were back in the limo, Vicki and Coreen's bags along with Henry's in the trunk and they were headed past the Convention Center enroute to the docks and the seaplane hangars.

Next to the marina were the low flat structures that housed the small planes and the long docks that ran out into the water. As they drove along the shore they could see one tied up at the end of the wooden dock. These were private, for hire float-planes that flew passengers from the Vancouver harbor to the Inner harbor in Victoria. They arrived at the tiny terminal on the shore across from the dark mass of Stanley Park. Opposite they could see the stream of headlights heading over the causeway through the park to the Lion's Gate Bridge. Far down on their left, in the distance they could glimpse the lights of the Second Narrows Bridge arching across to the twinkling lights of the North Shore slopes.

Thomas was removing the bags from the trunk after opening the limo doors for them and when they had exited the car, they were approached by a man of perhaps forty-five, trim and weather beaten, in the way of people who spend a great deal of time out in the wind and the sun.

"Henry, I'm happy to see you." He held out his hand and Henry grasped it in his own cool one and then pulled him into a quick embrace.

"Kevin, I'm so glad that Augustus sent you as my envoy. I haven't seen you in several months now. I've missed our conversations."

"I've just returned from Belfast, Henry. That territory changed hands, abruptly, and there were some, difficulties, which required some heavy duty negotiations," Keith said lowly.

"Hostile takeover?" Henry's brow lifted.

"Uh-huh, very," Kevin confirmed. "Man, it is great to see you out and about Henry. Who are your companions? Augustus said to plan for two female humans."

Henry turned to Vicki and Coreen. "Your pardon," he said to them. "That was unforgivably rude of me. This is a good friend of mine, Kevin Talbot." He looked warmly back to Kevin. "He was a great help to me, when I first arrived here in Vancouver, and took up this territory. Kevin this," he said, indicating Coreen with a smile, "is _my_ friend, Coreen Fennel. She often masquerades as my sister; I've been told there is a resemblance. She is under my _protection_."

Kevin leaned forward, with a smile, to take Coreen's hand in his. He had noted Henry's words carefully. _If she is under Henry's protection then he will expect me to extend my protection to her as well, _his_ friend._

Henry turned to Vicki and she stepped forwards to Kevin, sticking out her hand and saying, "Vicki Nelson," with a smile.

Kevin reached out to take her hand in his when he caught Henry's next words.

"Victoria is my _Chosen_."

Kevin froze in mid-action. _I have lived all of my life in the Community. All my life I have had the knowledge of the "creatures" that the Community provided service to, and I have in all that time only ever met two other _Chosen_._ He glanced to Henry, receiving a slight nod, before he took Vicki's hand.

"I am honored to meet you, Victoria," he said.

"Vicki, please," she said as she shook his hand. Her eyes went to Henry; she was confused by Kevin's sudden change to a more formal demeanor. Henry just shrugged a slight lifting of his shoulders.

Thomas had loaded their bags onto a small cart and was proceeding to wheel it into the terminal building. Coreen and Vicki started off after him and then Henry followed them. Kevin drew him back a few paces.

"You didn't inform us Henry that you were traveling with your _Chosen_ to this meeting or for that matter even that you had _taken a Chosen_. It may complicate matters," Kevin said.

"I will not be parted from her," Henry said resolutely, his posture stiffening.

"I'm not suggesting that you should be; but, well I will just have to make some calls."

"Do what you must Kevin, I trust you." Henry said.

***

Orion Gaelan was forlorn; he knew well his own pain, his own tortuous disappointment in the human to whom he had given his heart. He had lived it for months, for years. He had never thought to see Liath, his beautiful and intelligent cousin, brought so low.

Liath of the bright spirit, Liath of the soft voice, Liath of the beautiful and loving heart, she had been his strength, when he couldn't leave the haven of the waves. She had lent him her love of life and the world of men, when his own was gone; she had drawn him once more to the shore. How had she come to this? How had she been brought so low, by a human that she had known no more than a handful of days?

He looked at her dejected form, her sorrowful and tear-reddened eyes as she sat hunched in the dim lighting of the living room.

"Perhaps, he doesn't know after all Liath," he tried. "Perhaps there is just a problem with his phone," Orion temporized.

Her desolate gaze came up to his face, "He knows, Orion," she whispered in a voice gone hoarse with her sobbing. "He knows, the woman from the beach in Stanley Park," Liath picked up Vicki's card from the coffee table, turning it over and over in her fingers. "She told him, she told him about you, Orion."

Gaelan paled under his tanned good looks.

Liath continued relentlessly, "And when he knew about you, well he knows you are my cousin Orion. I told him _at least_ that much myself." She shook her head sadly.

"Our mothers were twin sisters Orion, it shows in our faces. He would have realized that if you are Selchie, then so am I. That's why he won't return my calls, that's why…" A tear slipped down her cheek and Orion leaned across to take her hand.

Clare came softly into the living room and turned on another lamp. "Perhaps he just needs some time to process what he has learned, Liath. I know that he loves you, it fair shines out of his eyes."

"He _loved_ me Clare; he loved _me_, the human girl Liath. Now that he knows that I'm a…that I'm not human, not who he thought, he doesn't, h-he doesn't…"

Clare folded Liath in her arms. "Oh Liath, hush, you don't know that." Clare stoked Liath's hair while the girl sobbed against her shoulder as though her heart was broken.

"I sh-should have told him," Liath hiccoughed, after a few moments. "I should have told him myself, to his face, maybe somehow I could have explained."

"There are no words of ours that can make them understand, Liath," Orion said. Then he took Liath's hand and drew her to her feet. "Just for tonight, Liath, just for one night, let's lose ourselves to the sea. Please, Liath?" he asked.

Liath nodded slowly, wiping a sleeve across her face. "Clare will you fetch Liath's coat please?" Orion asked. "We are going to walk down to the shore."

Mike saw them as soon as they emerged from the house. From where he sat, parked further up the street, he watched Liath and Orion walk slowly away along the sidewalk.

He had been unable to settle in his hotel room, unable to sleep, unable to think. His heart was breaking. He couldn't, he just couldn't make sense of what Vicki had told him. So in the end, he had gotten dressed and driven to Liath's house, only to spend the last forty-five minutes, torn by indecision, sitting morosely behind the wheel of his parked car staring at her home.

He wanted to see her, he needed to see her, to ask her…but he couldn't and so he sat, staring at her house.

Now he watched as Orion Gaelan put his arm around her shoulder and they walked slowly down the street. His heart twisted in his breast as he watched her lean heavily against the taller man. She seemed weak, beaten somehow. His heart yearned towards her, he couldn't help himself. He followed. He kept far back on the street, turning off on a side street, parking and then watching them walk by opposite the corner. He _knew_ where they were going now, _to the water; they were going to the water_.

He watched them from the distance as they started down the sloped driveway to Clover Point. He drove to the overlook of the Point, and parked in the dark, killing the lights on the car. After a few minutes as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw them make their way across the flat field of the Point to the rocky drop to the water. When they were past the lone lamppost at the end of the Point he saw Gaelan lift his head to look cautiously around. Then Liath and Orion began to pick their way carefully down the rocks.

Mike exited the car, and as quickly and as quietly as he could, he crept down the slope.

_I should go back to the car. I should go back to the car. I don't want to know, but, I just have to. I have to know…_

When Mike was crouched at the top of the rocks, he could hear Orion and Liath's soft voices.

"Liath," Orion said, "If he calls the house, then Clare will tell him you are at Maxine's."

He couldn't make out the words of Liath's response, just the tearful tone that tore at his heart.

"You need this Liath. Trust me; I know. When I finally took my skin back, the ocean was the only thing that eased the pain of L-Linda's betrayal. Just one night of freedom in the dark water, Liath, and you will have a cleared and calmer head tomorrow.

Mike crouched further down as suddenly Orion's pale figure came into view, wading out into the dark water that lapped at the rocks, its surface silvered and shingled by the tiny waves and the moon overhead.

Mike watched without drawing breath as Orion's form shimmered and then the man was gone and a sloe-eyed seal with a spotted coat slid beneath the waves. He watched as the seal flashed out into the deeper water and then saw the sleek head reappear with the peculiar bark of the grey seal.

Tears started in Mike's eyes as he watched Liath's shapely, naked form pick her way over the rocks to the water's edge. Her hair was loose across her back, lifting and whipping about in the onshore breeze. The moon sailed overhead, illuminating her pale, shivering beauty as she waded out into the water.

He could not look away; he was frozen, paralyzed, yet when the water was to her thighs and the body of the seal that was Orion circled her playfully in the water, Mike lurched to his feet, standing at the top of the rocks.

"Liath," he called to her, and she spun to look back at the shore, her arms crossed over her breasts and the dark water lapping around her navel. Mike began to clamber recklessly down the rocks. He looked up to her again. "Liath, please," he shouted.

Her eyes were huge and solid brown, dark in her face. The seal beside her twisted and turned in the water, urging her with sharp yips and a rasping, coarse, honking noise. When his feet splashed in the ankle deep water of the rocky shore, Mike stretched his arms out over the silvered surface. "Liath, please, don't."

Her dark eyes showed a terrible despair and then the edges of her form blurred. Mike watched; he never took his eyes from hers and yet he could not say, save for the emptiness in his heart, the instant that his Liath was gone. Now two sleek seal bodies, watched him, unblinking, from the tide.

"Liath," he whispered brokenly, and then she slipped beneath the surface and was…gone.


	38. Chapter 38

Coreen's nose was pressed against the window as the sea-plane taxied out across the dark water. She could see the choppy little waves of the surface that slipped by underneath the pontoons.

"Are you sure that you don't want to check this out, Vicki?" she said as she turned to where Vicki and Henry sat next to each other on the opposite side of the narrow aisle.

"No thanks, Coreen," Vicki said; she looked decidedly ill at ease. "You go ahead though, knock yourself out."

Henry could scent Vicki's fear. The moment that the engines revved up for take-off, I could feel that her uneasiness crossed a threshold and now _I can scent her fear, my Chosen's fear._ The Vampire responded to this stimulation, seeking a way to, a way to…

Vicki's hand closed on his thigh, and she squeezed hard, with a slight shake. "Henry, you look like you want to kill someone. What's with the face?" Henry drew in a deep breath, covering Vicki's hand with his own. "I'm fine Vicki," he said, "Just a little nervous I suppose." Vicki looked doubtful, but she didn't press the point.

The plane was picking up speed, gliding across the water; the engines were a loud roar as the distant lights of the shore streamed by in the dark. Faster and faster they went until with a sudden shift in her stomach, Vicki knew that they were in the air. The plane banked out over the open water in a wide turn climbing rapidly.

They passed over the ancient forest of Stanley Park, trees of such an age that under their boughs even the vampire felt young. The dark mass of the park gave way to the cityscape slung out below them in a broad arc. Henry watched from the window, his city, his, and it lay out below him like a glittering field of flowers nestled between the mountains and the sea. The vampire swelled inside him, demanding his focus. He was leaving his territory, the place that was his, and venturing into the place of another. His instincts roused at the thought, _I should have fed_, he thought suddenly. _Before I attempted this, I should have fed. This whole thing would be easier to manage if… _

The hunger was not really at issue, he had taken Jared's blood only the previous evening. Physically he had no real requirement, yet there was a certain soporific effect that recent feeding had on his instincts.

He diverted himself by listening to Kevin's voice. He could hear him on the phone from his seat at the back of the small cabin. His tone was reasonable and measured and he knew that Kevin would negotiate all that was necessary.

_The man has a golden tongue,_ he thought. _I remember Kevin standing at the door of my sanctuary in the safe house, badgering me to rise. He had presented all his arguments persuasively, eloquently and when I refused to leave my bed, turning away and dismissing him, he simply dragged me out of it_. Now, Henry could smile at the memory of a four hundred and eighty year-old vampire, not to mention a Prince of the Realm, dragged from his bed like a sleepy teenager by a scrawny forty-five year-old human. _We came to blows and of course I ended up with him pinned to the wall and virtually snarling in his face. I can still remember how flummoxed I was when he started to laugh and said, "Well at least you're up."_

Henry turned to Vicki with a smile as they reached their flight altitude and the mud flats of the Delta flashed by below.

"How long do you think that it will take for us to arrive in Victoria?" Vicki asked him.

"Kevin told me that it would be about a forty-five minute flight, depending on the weather," he replied.

"So we are going to land right downtown in the Inner Harbor?" Coreen asked, turning away from the window at last, when all there was below was the silvered surface of the water passing.

It was Kevin who replied from his seat further back, having closed his phone and put it away. "Yes, there is a dock and a terminal building on the James Bay side of the Inner Harbor. We will land and then taxi in there to the dock. There will be a car waiting for us when we arrive."

Henry twisted in his seat to look at his envoy. "I assume that the Resident's representative will be there as well?" He said this more for Vicki and Coreen's benefit, as the format of such dispensation arrangements were usually very similar.

Kevin nodded. "Yes, his name is Arthur Ramsey, I know him well. He will be representing Adrienne's interests; I understand that she's worked with him in the past."

"So where exactly is this that we'll be meeting up with this other vampire?" Vicki asked.

"Well, to tell the truth I had arranged for separate transportation to the safe house for you and Ms. Fennel, while Henry…"

"Nuh-uh," Vicki shook her head interrupting. "Sorry Kevin, but that's just not gonna happen. I'm not leaving Henry's side, no way in hell."

"Vicki," Henry tried for a reasonable tone, "I have been granted a dispensation, there are witnesses, it will be fine."

"Yeah and that's why you are wound up tighter than a spring, because there is absolutely no risk," Vicki said sarcastically. "Don't ask me to leave you Henry, please. I know that you know Kevin and the "Community," but these people are strangers to me Henry. I won't leave you with them. Where you go, I go." she said this with such vehemence and such fierceness that Henry couldn't find it in himself to argue.

Kevin spoke from where he was seated, "It's a moot point anyway, Henry. Now that Adrienna knows that you have taken a Chosen, and that she is here with you, Adrienna is insisting that your companions accompany you to the meeting."

"What the hell is up with this whole Chosen thing? I have a fucking name you know!" Vicki shouted; she felt completely tense and wound up. Energy was skittering and dancing over her nerve endings; she could sense danger, a threat, something. Coreen watched wide-eyed from across the aisle.

Henry put a hand on Vicki's shoulder and the contact seemed to calm her substantially. "Vicki, please," he said, his blue eyes dark and troubled. "Please, I'll explain whatever you want later, but for now," She watched as his pupils dilated outwards and the looming darkness overtook the vibrant evening blue, "for now, please try to remain calm. When you are angry and frightened it makes it difficult for me to focus on anything but that fact. I need my wits about me Vicki!" He ran a hand down her arm. "Please," he whispered.

She raised a hand to cup his cheek and looked directly into the ebony eyes, "All right Henry, I'll try but I can't guarantee what'll happen if…"

"It will all be fine," Kevin said, "This meeting is basically just a formality." He leaned in the seat as the plane began to bank into a decent to land in the open water just outside Victoria's Inner Harbor.

Thousands of tiny white lights that were the outline of the parliament buildings, and the floodlit, vine covered façade of the Empress Hotel, looked on, as the small craft settled smoothly to the surface of the harbor and then throttled back and began to taxi into the terminal.

The moment the plane touched down, the humans in the plane's cabin became aware of a change in the vampire. Though Henry's eyes had resumed their human appearance, there was a strange and prickling sense of unease in the air. The vampire seemed to be at once both highly focused and yet strangely distant.

_Less Henry, more vampire,_ Coreen thought. _He's still Henry but his instincts are coming to the forefront. So this is how a Vampire looks when they are in another's territory._

When the plane was tied up at the end of the dock, they could see a group of three men standing beside a stretch limo and a black Mercedes sedan. As the pilot opened the cabin door, Vicki started up from her seat. Henry laid a hand on her arm.

"Wait Vicki," he said, "our representatives must meet first, before I set foot in this territory."

They watched as Kevin walked along the dock to be met partway by a tall dark-haired man, with a neatly trimmed beard. They spoke briefly then shook hands and began to walk together towards the plane. Henry turned to Vicki and said, "We can get off now. Please, Vicki, Coreen, stay with me and follow my lead." He looked at them both seriously until they each nodded.

Henry got off first, and handed Vicki and then Coreen down the short flight of steps.

When the bearded man neared, Henry swiveled his head towards him, lifting his chin and narrowing his eyes; Vicki could feel Henry's body tense beside her at the other man's scent.

"Henry Fitzroy? My name is Arthur Ramsey. I am the envoy of Adrienna Morris, Resident of Vancouver Island. She sends you her greetings and has granted you safe passage in her territory," the bearded man said.

Henry nodded solemnly, graciously; Vicki and Coreen remained silent. Arthur's eye fell on Vicki with a spark of curiosity.

"Please," he bowed slightly with a wave of his arm, indicating that they should pass him. "The cars are waiting to take you to the meeting. At its conclusion, they will be at your disposal. If you desire they will return you to the accommodations that the Community has arranged."

When they arrived at the cars, Henry, Coreen and Vicki were ushered into the limo. Arthur leaned in before the door closed to say that they would be meeting with Adrienna at the Buchart Gardens perhaps a thirty-minute drive distant. Kevin, Arthur and the other driver took the Mercedes sedan. As the Mercedes started off, their driver pulled away from the curb to follow.

They passed through downtown Victoria, the streets still alive with tourists even at the hour of eleven in the evening. As they drove up Government Street, they passed a pub, The Irish Times, and they could see the patrons through the faceted glass of the windows and faintly hear the fiddle tunes that rolled out through the open doors.

"I could use a drink right now," Vicki said, as much to break the silence that had fallen in the car as from any desire to actually have one.

Henry didn't respond; he seemed lost in thought. Coreen rolled her eyes at Vicki.

"Henry. Hey Hank!" When he looked up at her, Vicki continued, "Why are you so quiet? You haven't said a word since Ramsey introduced himself. What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry Vicki. It was his scent. I, I could smell her all over him."

"The territorial thing?" Coreen asked sympathetically.

"Yes," Henry admitted, trying to ease some of the tension from his shoulders. "Yes and no, her scent…her scent is ancient, power laden and full of…promise. It makes me feel, young and inexperienced in a way I haven't in a very long time."

He shook his head; he could feel the vampire struggling inside, seeking to answer the challenge in that disturbing scent.

_I know that I can handle the power of my instincts if all goes well, but if, if Vicki or Coreen are threatened in any way, I'm not sure; I'm just not sure._

"Well get the idea out of your head that you're dropping us off somewhere," Vicki growled.

But Henry just shook his head. "I couldn't leave you inside of this one's territory even if you asked me to Vicki; it would not be possible for me."

"Well good, then," Vicki said somewhat mollified.

They resumed their silence, Henry inward focused, his dark eyes brooding. Vicki and Coreen stared out the windows into the dark and buildings, then stands of trees and then farmland passed as they headed up the Pat Bay Highway.

Fifteen minutes later they turned off the highway onto a smaller road. Coreen spotted the signage indicating Buchart Gardens. After a moment Henry spoke.

"Vicki, remember yesterday night when you asked me to…show you more…of what my life is like?" Vicki nodded and Coreen's ears perked up, her limitless curiosity stirring.

"Then when I agreed to…show you…to choose you, I asked you for your promise," Henry said.

"I remember," Vicki said; she had given her word.

"I need that promise from you again tonight Vicki, and from you Coreen," Henry said, "I need to know that I can rely on your oath."

Vicki knew that Henry needed to hear the words to assuage some of the terrible tension he felt. She wanted to ease him and so she repeated her promise of the previous evening.

"I will do exactly as you say. I will keep quiet and not interfere. I will not resist you in any way. You have my promise," Vicki said solemnly.

Coreen's eyes widened as the vampire looked at her seriously, "I need your oath, little sister," he said softly.

When Coreen had repeated the words, Henry seemed a little more relaxed. Vicki and Coreen however, felt much more anxious.

The car pulled into the entrance for the Gardens, the head lights sweeping in a white swath through the trees. They drove through the deserted orange-lit parking lots, pausing only while a security guard unlocked a gate to swing it out of a small private roadway. It was a short distance to a small gravel parking lot, in front of some low buildings. They could see a large number of sparkling glass greenhouses spread out in a long row behind.

"Remember your promise," Henry said, as the driver opened their door.

For Vicki and Coreen, the night they stepped out into was velvet black and filled with the wet pattering and spraying sounds of the sprinklers, the chirping of the cricket chorus and the fragrance of thousands of blooms.

For Henry, the night was full of the challenging scent of one of his own kind. It rode on the very air that he drew into his lungs. It infuriated him, filling him with an unreasonable desire to strike and rend. The part of him that was vampire chafed within and strained against the constraints of an iron will. He saw or heard nothing other than the clamor of his instincts battering at his rational thought…other.

Kevin came back to them from the other car. He didn't approach too closely, neither did he speak to, or touch Henry. He stood with eyes averted until Henry looked directly at him and then Kevin said softly, "Adrienna is waiting inside. Are you ready?"

Matthews stood outside the bedroom door, at his regular post. He stared off down the hall and was humming a little tune, over and over again. _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are…_

As long as he hummed he could ignore the sounds that drifted past the thick mahogany of the door that he guarded. The terrible sounds and the frantic muffled screaming that the whores always made from behind the gags. _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…_

He knew that the sounds had died away a few minutes ago but he still jumped, caught unawares as the door opened behind him.

"Ah, Matthews, still at your post I see. Good man, good man," Fletcher said jovially.

Matthews turned his suit clad bulk to face his employer and saw as always the immaculate white hair, the bright blue eyes, now deepened by lust and cruelty.

Matthews's eyes fled Fletcher's predatory gaze, to fall to the blood-stained butcher's apron that protected the silk robe that Fletcher wore beneath it. He saw the latex-gloved hands stained red with blood. Matthews focused on the sparse grey and silver hair on Fletcher's chest at the opening of the robe.

"It seems that this little slut won't be requiring a ride back to the Ferry tomorrow after all. I need you to take care of the mess that she made of the room though," Fletcher said. "Dispose of the garbage in the usual discreet way and when you're done, come and find me in the library."

Matthew's nodded numbly as Fletcher pulled the apron over his head, dropping it on the floor, and stripped off the bloodied gloves, dropping them on top. Through the opening in the loosely belted robe, Matthews caught a glimpse of Fletcher's semi-erect organ nestled in a thatch of iron grey curls.

"Make sure all of my devices and implements are cleaned and appropriately stored," Fletcher said as Matthews eyes quickly darted back to his face.

"Yes sir," Matthews managed, and then he shuffled past Fletcher, entering the bedroom and closing the door softly behind him.

_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are…_

Fletcher reclined in the leather chair, in his office; he was relaxed and…spent. He leaned forward and placed his bourbon on the desk top, and picked up the phone. Punching in a number, he waited until a male voice answered.

"Any news?" Fletcher asked without preamble.

"Yes, two names, Mr. Fletcher, Ben Turner and William Hagen. Both are Victoria residents and both work for the Victoria Aquatic Mammals Protection Society."

"Find them," Fletcher instructed. He was feeling mellow and sated after his sport. _The filthy bitch was good for something after all_, he thought.

He fondled his heavy member in one hand as he said. "I haven't decided what to do about them yet, find them and follow them."

"Yes Sir, Mr. Fletcher," the voice said before Fletcher returned the phone to the cradle.

_Perhaps I'll have Matthews wake Chef; I feel like a…omelet, I think…_

His feet were soaked, as the waves ran in to wash about the rocks, at the end of Clover Point. He was numb to the sensation except to derive some obscure comfort from the sigh of the ocean's breath against the shore. His pants were wet to the knees, the fabric wicking up the water, and the material white rimmed with salt.

How long he had been sitting here, staring off across the silvery water and watching the cloud-cast moon cross the sky, he could not say.

He was cold, he knew, and yet it didn't really matter. He was colder inside than out. His heart was frozen in a world suddenly gone flat and featureless.

He had waited, the tears wet on his cheeks, waited to see if Liath would return, watching for her in the water. There had been nothing, no one, and the trickling tears had dried in the onshore breeze, and still he waited. When hope had finally gone, he crumpled to the rocks to sit, lost in his own misery.

Finally, with a sigh, he levered himself to his feet, stiff limbs protesting, and turning, made his way up to the point, ambling like a lost soul across the open expanse and up the slope to where his car was parked. Standing on the overlook he could see the faint lights of Port Angeles across the Strait, the water stretching out flat and featureless away into the distance, placid and serene under the moon.


	39. Chapter 39

Kevin went first, and then Henry, followed by Vicki and Coreen in rapid succession. Arthur Ramsey held open the door of the small wood-siding building, indicating with a wave that they should follow him through.

"What the hell, are we meeting her in a fucking potting shed?" Vicki whispered to Coreen.

"Vicki, if her hearing is as good as Henry's you do realize that she can probably hear you," Coreen whispered back.

"Yeah, yeah," Vicki mumbled but her attention was already focused on Henry. In front of her eyes, his carriage and gait had altered. Gone was the usual smooth, studied nonchalance, he looked every inch the stiff-legged, dangerous predator that he was. She reached out to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, feeling the tension of his muscles beneath the cool skin.

He did not turn as they entered the dimly lit space, but whispered only, "Remember your oath."

_Fuck!_ Vicki thought.

A shadowed figure moved from behind the table that was at one end of the room and Henry stiffened and then became absolutely still.

Kevin spoke from off to one side. "As you have stipulated Adrienna, this is Henry Fitzroy, Resident of Vancouver."

Whatever Vicki had been expecting when Adrienna Morris stepped into view and settled into focus, it wasn't the short, rather stout, grey haired matron of perhaps sixty that she saw. _Adrienna could be my fucking mother,_ Vicki thought. She heard Coreen's gasp of surprise from behind her.

Henry was struggling; the vampire that he saw before him was more powerful than he had imagined. Her scent called out to him to challenge or to submit. He saw her for who she was, a powerful and ancient being, who caused the very air around her to thrum with the resonances of the lives that she had lived and of the lives that she had taken. The vampire in Henry heard the siren call of an elder and he stumbled forward a pace, before the Prince regained a shred of control and composure.

The humans watched what appeared to be an aging woman in a sweatshirt and gardening smock, with a large smudge of dirt across her forehead, remove her gardening gloves and motion Henry forward.

He took a single step, no more, halting himself by force of will alone. Vicki could see the rigid set of his back.

Adrienna, on the other hand, smiled disarmingly. "You needn't be so tense, youngling. I mean no harm to you and yours."

Henry's hands clenched and unclenched and Vicki could see by the tic in his jaw that he was engaged in some internal battle.

"Henry Fitzroy, the Bastard Prince, is it not so?" Adrienna asked. She had not moved, but stood wiping her palms against the apron and then used the back of her hand to push back the flyaway ends of her hair from her forehead. This maneuver did nothing to alter the smudge that ran to her hairline.

"Madam," Henry managed, his head inclining the slightest amount. "You wished to meet with me. Was there something…"

"Oh yes, Your Grace, there is something."

The change in the atmosphere of the room was intense, every human in the group felt it. Coreen's arms came up to wrap around herself.

When Adrienna spoke next, to Henry's ears her voice took on the tone of compulsion. He felt her power, her voice became all and there was no choice but to obey. The vampire raged and howled silently inside, but as with all his kind, he had to answer the call of the ancient blood.

"Come here, Henry," she said simply, and he went. He felt himself cross the intervening space between them; he drew close.

Vicki made to follow but Kevin grasped her arm. She turned to him with a hiss but he only shook his head and said, "Remember your promise, Chosen."

Vicki watched closely. She could see the fine tremors that ran through Henry's body.

Adrienna leaned forward and raised a hand to run a fingertip along Henry's jaw softly; it was almost a caress.

"Tsk…I only wish to talk, Your Grace, with one of my own kind. Can you not indulge an old woman in her fancies?"

Henry realized that his fangs had fallen, and try as he might, he could not seem to retract them. Eventually, with his hands balled at his sides, he growled out, "I can…try, Madam."

Adrienna smiled sadly, "It is such a struggle is it not? I remember it well, the desire to rend and tear that proximity brings." She shook her head. "I can ease this for you for a time, you know, if you will let me?"

Henry drew in a deep breath; he knew what she offered and what she asked. His control was in tatters.

"You could just compel me," he admitted frankly. "You have more than enough power to…"

"I know that, Your Grace, and yet I think that you can hold your own," she replied, stepping closer still.

The vampires were face to face now, the straight and taller, beautiful young Lord and the shorter, aging matron, old enough to be his grandmother.

Henry bowed his head in submission and Vicki stifled a cry as she watched him angle it over, chin down to his chest, exposing the strong column of his throat to the other vampire.

With a gasp, Coreen grabbed Vicki's arm as Kevin bodily wrestled her back.

"Vicki, Vicki stop! Please!" Coreen begged. "You promised not to interfere. We both did; we have to trust him."

"If she fucking hurts him, I swear Coreen, I swear I'll…"

Henry felt the breath of the ancient one on his skin; she leaned against him and then sank her fangs into his flesh. Closing his eyes, he submitted in the way of his kind. He felt her draw his blood into her; he felt her draw him in. Her hands closed on his biceps, though he was scarcely aware. She came flowing across the blood that linked them. She brought him calm, long and careful thought and consideration. She brought him pain and a deep abiding joy. She brought him both cruelty and mercy. And she took; she took in return, his anger, his hurt and his guilt. She took from him the instinct that prodded him to kill her, dulling it, appeasing it. Then she withdrew, leaving him empty and bereft. He gazed into her black eyes that were the mirror of his own. He could feel the wet red trickle against his collarbone, and the breath he drew in brought him the scent of his own blood.

Adrienna ran her hands up and down his arms, as the Prince sagged against her.

"Your turn youngling," she said, and pushing up the sleeve of her sweatshirt to her elbow, she offered Henry her wrist.

"Drink, that we might for a while escape our instincts, and have the companionship of another."

Henry sank to his knees in front of her and lifted the inside of her wrist to his lips. She was cloaked in the shimmering, vibrating film of her power. He brought his lips to her flesh and glancing up, met the steady gaze of eyes as black and as inhuman as his own.

"Drink," she urged and as he felt the first power-laced drops of her blood flow across his tongue, he felt the residual turmoil of his instincts calm. It was as though, his body recognized her and he was released from the pressure of his territorial drive. He drew her into him, convulsively swallowing what she provided.

Enough Henry, he heard her voice in his mind. It is enough for this night.

He withdrew his fangs and gently laved the four tiny punctures that healed even as his tongue passed over them.

Henry remained on his knees looking up at the other vampire and Adrienna dropped him a small curtsey.

A frown crossed his brow.

"It feels strange, does it not?" she asked, "To be free, however briefly, of the drive that governs our existence?" She smiled as he nodded. "Rise then, Your Grace, and let us walk and talk while we may."

She turned away and as Henry made to follow her, Vicki tore away from Kevin's restraining hand. She bolted across the few feet between them and reached a hand out to Henry's shoulder. At her touch he turned, his eyes black and bottomless.

"You can't just go with her Henry, I don't know what she did but you can't just…"

Henry swept Vicki into his arms, crushing his lips against hers. His hands ran up and down her back then up again to tangle in her hair. He lifted her face to his, stretching out her throat. "Vicki," was all he said, the love and lust in his voice made all other words unnecessary.

Adrienna had turned back to him now. She said softly, "Ahhh, I take it this is your Chosen?"

Vicki's arms tightened around Henry protectively. He kissed along her jaw line and then tenderly kissed her lips once again. She could feel his joy played out in the attitude of his body. He breathed deeply of her scent, and still holding her gaze, said, "This is Victoria, my Chosen."

Vicki looked into Adrienna's face, the shining black eyes and the double fangs incongruous in the visage of a grandmother. Then she looked back at Henry; the vampire was in full view.

Vicki extended her hand, "Vicki Nelson," she said.

Henry shifted suddenly, his growl loud in the air, and Arthur Ramsey and Kevin started forward.

Adrienna smiled, "Calm yourself Henry. I won't…trespass."

To Vicki she said, "I'm sorry my dear, but it would be better for us all, if I don't attempt to touch you."

Vicki dropped her hand, "Sorry," she mumbled, "I guess I, I mean I didn't know."

Adrienna turned to Henry, "In the time that I have been here, she indicated her territory with a sweep of her arm, "I have taken two Chosen. I don't think that I can bear to do so again. The loss is too…great."

"Vicki is the only Chosen I have taken," Henry said. "She is..."

"All? Yes I know." Adrienna said. "Will you walk with me Prince?"

Henry set Vicki reluctantly aside; he squeezed her hand gently. "Wait for me my love, please. Not since I was made, have I been able to speak to another such as myself, unfettered. Will you allow me this?"

Vicki nodded slowly, the frown never leaving her face. "And you're sure Henry?" At his nod she continued "I'll just wait with Coreen then, shall I?" She didn't want to leave him but she could understand his excitement. He wanted to do this and that was all the reason that she needed.

Halfway back to the group of humans, she stopped, and turning back to Adrienna said, "But no more biting or blood drinking…right?"

The reverberating power in Adrienna's chuckle stopped her breath.

"No, not tonight, dear, not tonight."

Adrienna held out her hand to Henry and in a blur of motion, the vampires were gone.

"So now I guess we just…" Vicki began.

"Wait," Kevin finished, nodding.

Arthur spoke up; "There are some refreshments and more comfortable seating in the lounge up in the Teahouse, if you'll follow me."

As they started out of the building Coreen came up alongside Kevin.

"So about this Community…" she began.


	40. Chapter 40

Distant from the humans and much deeper into the forested margins of the huge Garden, the vampires slowed to a more sedate pace.

They walked side by side in the dark, Henry marveling at how quiescent his instincts lay.

"It is as though the newborn blood bond is in effect, and you are my Sire," Henry said in wonderment.

"Yes, it is a similar, though far more temporary effect," Adrienna replied. "When your body has processed my blood, the effect will wear off, but by then you will be back inside the safe zone."

"Marvelous," Henry said, "but I would imagine the effect would weaken over time."

"Yes," Adrienna confirmed his theory. "We might attempt this at most three, perhaps four times, but each time the effect would be weaker until, there would be no effect at all. I must say though, Henry, you did very well for a vampire of your age; remarkable control you have."

"I'm not exactly a newborn Adrienna," Henry replied. "But I will take it as a compliment nonetheless."

They approached a rose garden that was set out in a complete circle, each of the enlarging concentric rings sporting different colored blooms. In the outermost ring the roses were a frosty white under the moonlight. As they walked towards the fountain at the garden's center, Adrienna said. "We have but a few hours to spend in each other's company. Tell me Henry, did you ask for the blood, or were you turned against your will?"

Henry shook his head, "My Sire, Christina, seduced me into the blood. I was seventeen, a sheltered and cosseted boy. I thought I was in love. I gave up my family, my wife, and quite possibly the crown, in order to be with her. The choice was mine and…I made it freely."

They arrived at the bubbling fountain at the center of the garden, and leaning at ease and accompanied by the sound of the falling water, Henry told Adrienna the story of his turning. They walked onward a bit and eventually took a descending path into a sunken garden featuring all native plants, according to Adrienna.

She pointed out this and that one and then after a few moments she took up the conversation.

"You have been quite polite Henry, in not mentioning, shall we say, the advanced age at which I was turned," she said, smiling ruefully.

"Well, I didn't wish to pry," Henry replied gallantly.

Adrienna uttered that deep powerful chuckle again and commenced her tale.

"I was born in the highlands of Scotland in the year of our Lord 1142. Adrienna Frazer, my mother, died in childbirth and yet I survived. My father doted on me. He was a silversmith, a fine craftsman. I still have the brooch that he made me for my wedding. And that would have been to my first love, James Morris. Now my James was born on the wrong side of the sheets. His father was the youngest son of the Chief of the Morris Clan. James was acknowledged, but was never in line to inherit."

Henry nodded; he knew what it was to be the by-blow of a powerful man.

"James was a canny man though, and he eventually put enough by to take on a little public house," her face betrayed a soft pride at the ancient memory. "Well, and of course my bride price didn't go amiss either. We had a good life there, James and I, for all that the work was hard. I had three bairns, all of them bonnie." She wrapped her arms about her at the memory. My daughter, Margret, was lost to the croup, when she was six, but my sons grew into strong young men with families of their own." She sighed and she settled onto a stone bench beside a fish pond. The chorus of frogs which had fallen silent at their approach resumed their midnight serenades.

Henry lowered himself to the seat beside her. He watched the dappled bodies beneath the surface of the water as they drifted in slow circuits of the pond. "It sounds like a happy life," he said.

"Oh it was hard and cold and sometimes bitter," she acknowledged, "but yes, I remember that I was happy then. It was late, one night when three men came to the door. They wanted a place to sleep by the fire, in the big room, which we sometimes provided. They were strange and the tallest, dark-haired one was pale and fey. I didn't want them to stay, but James was ever softhearted. He said, 'tis cold tonight Addie, I canna put them oot. When there was no one there but James and I and the kitchen slave…well it was then that my Sire made himself known to us. He was dark-haired and bearded, a thin man and pale. I thought him just into his thirties, only a little younger than my own lads who, thank God, had returned to their own homes. I know now that his companions were thralls, bound to his service by compulsion, but of course then I had no such idea.

Henry's eyes were sympathetic as he listened to her tale; there were some of their kind who lost touch with their humanity, and were vicious and feral, savage. He was afraid he knew how this story ended.

Adrienna paused for a long moment, lost in memory, but then she continued, soft in the dark.

"Well, you can imagine the scene. They took my James…and bound him to a chair in the room. He was an old man! They had beaten him. Then they made him watch as they raped and then killed the kitchen girl. My Sire and his companions then all took their pleasure of my body, me, who was as old as their own mothers would have been. I wanted to fight them but I could not. The whole while James was shouting and begging until his voice was gone. It was then that I first saw the black eyes of the vampire, then that I first felt the terror of compulsion. My Sire, he made me do…things to his body, and with my body, that I had never dreamed of. I could not stop myself, and all the while his companions laughing and jesting."

Henry closed his eyes in sorrow.

"Then my Sire went to James, and twisting his head to the side, tore out his throat. I could see his eyes grow dim as his life fled, from where one of his companions held me on his knee." She swallowed heavily, and then began to speak again. "When they had finally tossed me aside to crawl to my poor dead James's side, I heard them make a wager. My Sire told one of his companions that he believed that his blood was strong enough and pure enough, to turn even an auld wife like me. They placed their bets and dragged me by the hair away from my husband's body. He forced me to my knees in front of him and there my Sire drained me." Her voice grew quiet.

"I can still remember how the edges of the world faded away as the cruel mouth worked at my throat, the burning pain where he bit again and again, the obscene sensations he forced upon me. I can remember the slowing of the pounding of my heart and then the respite of a dark nothingness. Then there was pain again as he slapped me to rouse me. Laughing, he said to his companions; let us see what the blood makes of the old bitch. He sliced his arm with his own teeth and held the bloody wound to my lips, forcing me to drink. I don't think that I took very much but…"

"It was enough," Henry said.

"Apparently so," Adrienna said calmly. "He threw me into the root cellar behind the stable; I suppose he forced his companions to dig the shallow grave there. I lay senseless, for what I now know would have been at least three days and three nights. When I rose, casting aside the earth he had buried me in, it was to a new world, the old one was shattered. Of course, my Sire was long gone; something as unimportant as a newborn to the night would have been of no matter to him. Or perhaps he stayed to see the results of his wager; I would have no way of knowing, for I was a wild and dreadful creature, to be sure."

"He abandoned his Childe?" Henry asked. "How did you survive the…transition?"

"Yes, he abandoned me. As to how I survived…" she smiled, no more than a rueful twist of her lips, "I am a practical woman Henry. I wanted only one thing, had only one focus…"

"Revenge," Henry stated.

Adrienna nodded. "I did what was necessary, leaving the shards of my old life behind. I learned quickly the rules of my new existence. I did not resist, but followed the dictates of my new instincts, and I survived. It took me eight months to find him; he was careless and arrogant and he left a trail of whispered tales behind him. When I came on him one night, he was sitting alone in a tavern and watching a young barmaid through slitted eyes. What had become of his companions, I can very well imagine. The blood bond between Sire and Childe was still in effect and he was so focused on his prey that he did not sense me. I waited until he attacked the girl, outside the tavern and then I…well he never even saw it coming, the stake that ended his wickedness."

"I'm sorry Adrienna," Henry said softly. "I know that it doesn't help, but I am sorry."

Adrienna cleared her throat, returning to the present in a rush. "Yes, well it was a long time ago now."

Henry nodded, "That is certainly true. Times change and as they do, we must change as well."

Henry tipped his head back to watch the unchanging stars, high above the cloud-cast moon on her journey across the sky.

"Let me take you to the Grotto, Henry, there is the most beautiful nocturnal garden there. I have been working on it for years."

Henry rose and extended a hand to the other vampire, filled anew with wonderment at the quiescence of his instincts. As they began to stroll again he asked, "How is it that you come to be in this wonderful garden at night? Do you own it?"

Adrienna smiled and said, "Oh no, that would be far too public a position, I prefer the safety of anonymity. I did however know the man who built it. He was quite the visionary; it is actually built on the site of an old quarry. I find it amazing how industrious humans can actually be. I have a friend who works here as a night-time security guard. You would probably have seen him at the gate when you arrived this evening."

Henry nodded remembering.

"Well Vince, that's his name, he passed me off as his maiden aunt, and he arranged for me to volunteer in the potting sheds and greenhouses while he works his night-time shift. The owners were most…amiable…to the suggestion," she smiled guilelessly.

"Hmm, I'm sure that they were," Henry responded, a smile tugging at his lips.

"I really do love the gardens here, I have seen so many of the specimens grow into beautiful mature plants, and I've been able to watch the garden spread out across the landscape from its modest beginnings," Adrienna mused.

"I can see how that would bring a great deal of…satisfaction," Henry said. "And it is so; peaceful, so timeless…" he paused and glanced around him. "My own roof garden seems miniscule by comparison."

"You have built a garden?" she asked, interest blossoming in her voice.

"Well the garden was there when Augustus acquired the property for me, but I have adapted the plantings to be more in line with when I am able to enjoy it," Henry said.

"A night garden?" Adrienna asked. "Then you will be very interested in the Grotto," she said as they descended the railroad tie steps. Henry could scent the sweet cool fragrance of the flowering beds of nicotiana, pale under the moonlight.

As they began a leisurely walk through the Night Garden, Adrienna said. "I saw you once, you know, when you were human."

Liath and Orion flew through the water, high and level with the silvered surface or flashing low over the rumpled bottom. They twisted and turned through the majestic kelp forest off Ogden Point, the long strands waving gently with the currents and with the wake of their passage.

There were fish aplenty, and yet they did not tempt her.

They had hauled out briefly onto the granite steps of the breakwater and for a time Orion had feared that she would return to the human she had left on the shore. She lay silent and subdued and all Orion could do was to drag his bulk close and lay his head on her coat as she watched the moon sail past. Finally she slipped into the water again and headed out around the curve of the shore. Orion followed her lead, once it became clear that she would not be drawn into any of the games and sport that they usually enjoyed in this form.

They hauled out again on the rocks at the headland of the Inner Harbor. They lay panting and awkward on the shore. The liquid brown eyes gazed up at the constellations that spun slowly past overhead and then they watched a small plane descend from the distance to touch its pontoons down to the ocean's surface with a roar.

Liath was heart-broken, in human form or in seal form, her anguish continued unabated. She rolled off the rocks and into the water, hearing the splash of Orion behind her. She began to swim towards the open water, flying along at the surface, cutting through the water faster and faster. The seal's heart beneath her pelt pumped harder, stronger, as she pushed herself to the limits of her speed as though she would outrun her sorrow. She kept on until all she could sense was the flow of the water past her flippers and the pounding of her heart, as she lost herself to the night.

The hotel room was dark and cold when he pushed open the door; pressing it closed behind him, he leaned his head back against the wood.

It seemed an insurmountable effort to cross the distance to the bed, the linens still mussed and rumpled from where he had risen earlier, driven out into the night by his suspicions.

Well now you know, he thought. Now you know.

He staggered across to sit wearily on the edge of the bed, slowly stripping off his clothes. When he was down to his shorts, he rolled into the bed. He drew the blankets up over his body and turned to clutch the pillow in his empty arms.

His heart was broken and his anguish continued unabated. He stared off, empty-eyed, into the dark.

When it was near to dawn, a restless and exhausted sleep finally claimed him, he fell into a dream.

_The endless vista of the open green ocean, the pounding of his laboring heart and the smooth caress of the cool water slipping past his lithe body…_


	41. Chapter 41

"You saw me?" Henry asked. "You saw me when I was human?" He could not name the emotion that welled up inside him.

Adrienna nodded, "It was one of the reasons that I was so adamant about having this face to face meeting. You should know, by the way, that Kevin fought long and hard to avoid you having to meet with me, he really does have your best interests at heart, you know."

"How?" Henry paused, trying to collect his thoughts, "How did you know that it was…I mean…"

Adrienna took pity on the younger vampire. "Come now Henry, Augustus owed me the courtesy of a minimum of information about my new neighbor, and once he had provided me with the name Henry Fitzroy, well…I may look old Henry, but that doesn't make me senile. It wasn't hard to make a connection, and well, I knew your age."

Henry's eyes narrowed at the thought of Augustus giving any information about him to another vampire.

"Henry, you really need to guard your face a bit more." Adrienna patted his arm, in a gesture which was at once both comforting and thrillingly unfamiliar. "You do realize how worried Augustus was about you; you seem to be a particular favorite of his. It makes sense that he would seek the advice of an older, more experienced vampire, when he was faced with your curious malaise on your arrival in Vancouver."

Henry's head came up, "He told you about that?"

"Henry," she chided gently. "The risk was minimal; Augustus knows that I will not be moved from my territory, and that I did not pose a threat. Having seen you with your Chosen, I understand better what was happening. Augustus didn't tell me you had given yourself to…"

"Augustus didn't know. For that matter neither did I." Henry grudgingly admitted.

"Yes well that is really of no import, as you are together now," Adrienna said, watching the Prince carefully. He did not respond but she saw the shadow cross his face.

_Are we?_ he wondered.

Adrienna broke away from the subject and glanced around the garden, heading slowly towards the vine covered structure at its center.

"At any rate, once I knew who you were supposed to be, I wanted to see you for myself," she continued. "I supposed that you could simply be someone purporting themselves to be the Bastard Prince."

Henry drew himself up, affronted. "So tell me, have I met with your expectations Madam? Are you convinced that I am who I claim to be?"

"Well, if I had any suspicions, the expression on your face right now would allay them!" she laughed. "Relax, Your Grace; I am convinced that you are indeed the Bastard Prince, Henry Fitzroy."

Somewhat mollified, Henry tried out a tentative smile. "So were you just going to tell me that you saw me and not elaborate?"

Adrienna just shook her head, "No, but it is an old memory even for me, yet it has stayed with me, and I have on occasion wondered…" She settled herself on a low, stone wall, clasping her hands in her lap. Over her head arched ornate trellises supporting the heavy weight of the twisted and intertwining vines of the pale moon flower.

"It was an autumn evening, I remember," she began. "The sky that pristine violet that you so seldom see any more, you know?"

Henry nodded, the earliest part of the night, when the air was still and pure and held the last lingering bird-song of the day.

"I remember…" she said.

As soon as she rose, she could feel it, even here in the dark cellar where she had sheltered while the sun ruled the sky. She could feel the rolling current of human violence that sullied the very air that she drew into her body with her first convulsive breath of the night. Her instincts prickled and roused. Yes the hunger was there but more than that, she could almost taste the eddying and swirling energy on the air, it was dark and dangerous, the energy of the group…the energy of the mob.

At first she was uneasy and disturbed, searching her memory for any slip, any mistake that might have given away her presence amid the humans. Long experience had taught her that the mob was more unpredictable and far more dangerous than any beast. When the individual became lost in the mob consciousness, then hysteria overrode the better part of the human soul.

She had over the course of the long years, either through carelessness, or betrayal, been the object of human hatred and intolerance. There had been narrow escapes and terrible violence. Yes, the roiling energy in the air made her cool flesh crawl. She left the cellar by her private exit and reentered the house through the public entrance. Her landlord called out to her as she climbed the stairs to her chambers above.

"Have you had a busy day a-sewing Madam Seamstress?" he asked.

"Yes indeed, Sir," she said. "Madam Feraugh was most pleased with the chemise I embroidered and she had me begin work on some fine silken undergarments…"

Coloring, the landlord changed the subject quickly. "Have you been past the square? There is to be a beheading this evening."

"Why no, I did not come that way," Adrienna said. _This explains the violence that is heavy in the air,_ she thought.

"Tell me sir, who is to be beheaded, and what the charges are?" she asked.

"Oh, tis the three Scots that they've had at the gaol, for the last five days now. Bearded barbarians all, mistress, traitors plotting treason and harm to our King Henry." The landlord shook his head energetically, his jowls wobbling in a most unbecoming fashion.

"They was to be drawn'n quartered, but tis said that Queen Catherine beseeched King Henry for clemency."

_God bless you Catherine,_ Adrienna thought, _Were there to be that kind of spectacle here tonight, even if I kept to my rooms, the madness of the crowd would have driven me to the hunt. The violence in the night would be just too hard to resist._ Adrienna had to make a conscious effort to keep her fangs retracted at the thought. The sheer power of the bloodlust of the crowd was appalling.

"King Henry gave way to his Spanish Queen's request and the punishment has been reduced to a simple beheading. A little disappointing really, I do enjoy the temporary hanging, the way they twitch and…" the landlord said with an utterly wicked smile on his thick lips.

If he had hoped to shock the grey-haired seamstress he was disappointed. _Do not show weakness._ Adrienna's mouth thinned to a flat line. "The crowd will be disappointed," was all that she said.

"Yes," the landlord agreed, "except, except that the King will witness the execution himself and…" here the landlord paused for effect.

"And?" Adrienna said irritably. _I just want to get to my chamber and wash and be as far distant from this lout as I can, perhaps if I compelled him…no, too dangerous, just to avoid a little annoyance._

"And…they say that He will bring his bastard to stand by him," the landlord finished excitedly.

"The Bastard Prince," Adrienna said. This was news indeed. She knew that the King had recently raised the boy, Duke of Richmond, Earl of Somerset. _What was the child, perhaps six, a little more?_ Adrienna thought, _the same age as my wee Margret, when she was taken from me._

"Why-ever would the King bring a child to a beheading?" she wondered aloud.

"Why-ever indeed mistress?" the landlord said.

Adrienna turned and started up the stairs. "I think I will fetch my shawl and go down to the square," she said.

Once outside, wrapped in her shawl, with one end of the soft wool pulled up to drape around her head, she made her way to the square. She knew, courtesy of the talkative landlord, that the execution had been delayed past sunset because they were waiting for the King to return from the hunt, to dine, and then, with his courtiers, to arrive at the Magistrate's house not far from the now torch-lit, square.

The night air was full of the currents of anger and violence and the peculiar and attractive scent of human lust. This was something with which the vampire was well acquainted; violence and sex were often bed partners.

Making her way among the thickening crowd was like swimming against the tide. Each step required effort; each step required a firmer and firmer hold on the hunger that burned low in her belly.

Finally, she reached the torch-lit square. The mood of the crowd, assembled before the platform on which the executions were to occur, was one of equal parts feral excitement and lustful anticipation. It made her face ache with the effort to keep from snarling at the jabbering humans.

Amid the jostling elbows and the craning necks, she wound her way through the townsfolk, eventually arriving at the place where she knew that the prisoners would be led from the gaol.

_Three Scots, traitors all, that is what the boor of a landlord said,_ she thought. _If I can get close enough to touch, I might ease their passage a little and allow them the dignity of pride and silence, just for the sake of my home, long gone to dust._

The crowd began to shout and jostle as the sound of the approach of the Royal party was heard and Adrienna craned her neck with the rest of the crowd. There were guards who roughly parted the townsfolk, pushing back and slowly compacting the mass of humanity into a seething, tight-packed crowd.

Then there was the sound of the horse's hooves and a roar went up from the crowd as the Royal Carriage rolled into view.


	42. Chapter 42

Inside the confines of the carriage, Catherine sat opposite of her husband the King. She was annoyed with herself. _I should have been able to convince the King;_ she pondered whether or not Henry would be angry if she broached the subject again.

Her eyes travelled to the boy-child who sat without fidgeting in his finery on the seat beside his…father.

_There is no denying it,_ she thought. _The boy bears his Sire's stamp._ He sat still and compliant in the swaying dark carriage, even when he should have been in his nursery and abed.

"Henry," she said in her softly accented voice, and she smiled as both the child and the King focused on her as she voiced their name. She sat forward with the rustle of fine fabrics to lay a soft be-ringed hand on the King's knee. "Will you not reconsider your decision?"

She waited for the explosion and saw the boy edge slightly away from the King. But King Henry VIII held his temper and smiled. It was his old smile, the brilliant one that had fired her blood when they had first wed. The sight of it warmed her heart, but he said, "I will not my Lady, in this matter I have made all the concessions that I will."

He glanced at the child at his side and the tousled blond head rose to look clear-eyed into the King's face, a tremulous smile playing about the young lips.

Catherine was surprised when the King lifted the child onto his lap, resting his hands on the slender shoulders and regarding her seriously from over the blond gossamer curls.

"It is a hard world Catherine, and an even harder task to hold the throne. Pray heaven, that we have our own, living son, but should we not…this boy is my proof against the future. He must be taught Catherine; in your heart you know this."

"Then if he must attend, My Lord, will you not allow him to stay among the women?" she dared greatly, she knew.

There was a more formal note in the King's voice when he responded. "Catherine, it…pleases us that you are so solicitous of our bastard, but the boy will stand at our side."

The King turned his attention to the child. "Do you know where we are going, Henry?" he asked.

"Yes father," the child twisted his head around to regard the King. "We are going to watch an ex-ex-o-cut-ion." The boy said carefully.

"And are you frightened child?" Catherine asked gently.

The boy's gaze was guileless, "No Your Majesty, Nurse said that the King would keep me by him and that I shouldn't be afraid."

"You see," the King said, "the boy's lineage shows true, even now."

Catherine wisely held her tongue, nodding her head demurely and then turning to look out of the carriage. After a few minutes the rumbling of the crowd could be heard in the night air.

Adrienna watched as the executioner emerged from the barred door of the gaol. He was a heavy man, with huge strong arms. She suspected he was a blacksmith, beneath the hood that supposedly protected his identity. He mounted the stairs and conducted a brief inspection of the platform on which the block for the executions had been mounted. She could smell his sweat and hear the ponderous beating of his heart as it pumped his blood through his body. There was no anxiety or fear in his scent, just the trace of excitement elicited by the shouts and cat-calls from the crowd.

At that moment every head, including the vampire's, turned towards the Royal carriage as it arrived beside the dais where the Magistrate and the priest already waited. The crowd grew silent as they watched first the courtiers and then the Queen's Ladies ascend the steps to the dais. They broke out into a wild cheering as the Queen herself appeared, mounting the steps sedately to stand overlooking the square and waiting for her husband HenryVIII.

The square was torch lit and large bonfires burned at either end of the open area. The flickering light, danced on the jewels and fine fabrics of the court.

_Fine Ladies one and all,_ Adrienna thought. _There is the same avarice in these high born faces, the same excitement at the witnessing of death as there is in the common faces of the crowd. That is except for the face of the Queen._ The vampire watched as Catherine stood in front of her chair and she could see the sorrow and pity in the Spanish Queen's face. She watched as the Queen's lips moved soundlessly as one by one the beads of her rosary slipped through her fingers. Adrienna wondered, _does she pray for the souls of the condemned?_

The noise of the crowd hushed as the King exited the carriage and then rose to a cacophony as he turned to hand a small blond boy of perhaps six, out of the carriage.

_So here is the Bastard Prince, Duke of Richmond, Earl of Somerset, a slender set of little shoulders to bear the weight of such titles._ She thought.

The King set the boy in front of him on the stairs and kept his hand on the boy's shoulder as they mounted the steps and the crowd began to chant and cheer the name of the King. A few steps from the top the king caught the boy up in his arms, and mounting the last few steps, turned to face the cheering crowd with a broad white smile.

Henry settled into his throne-like chair, setting the boy on his knee. Catherine sat at his right and then finally the rest of the courtiers and officials in attendance seated themselves.

The door of the goal banged open, close at hand to where Adrienna was standing. First the guards emerged and then the three prisoners were dragged out, before the jeering crowd. They were clad in sack cloth and tethered together with heavy chains.

The air was full of all manner of invectives and insults, the townspeople waving their arms and shouting out cruel and ugly sentiments.

The Scots were bearded and filthy, covered with the wounds and burns of their torture, and they were to a man, terrified. Adrianna could smell their terror and her beast struggled and roared within. _I hunger, I hunger…_

She reached between the folds of her skirt to remove a large silver crucifix. She then stepped forward; showing the cross to the guard and when she spoke it was in an undertone. Her voice carried the power of a tightly reined and focused compulsion.

The Guard nodded in response to her request and she approached the prisoners in turn, speaking briefly to each and holding the cross to their bruised and battered lips. Then she stepped quickly aside and the prisoners were dragged forward and manhandled quickly up the steps to the platform and the waiting block.

Sinking back into the crowd, Adrienna wondered how long her compulsion would hold. '_There is no fear, there is no pain. The Lord God waits, to welcome you all home. Believe me.' Would it hold until the axe rose above them? Would it hold until life fled as the rich, red scent of their blood filled the night air?_

She had done what she had come for, now she needed only to ride out the storm of the crowd's violent energy and when the humans dispersed, then she would hunt.

His father lifted him from the steps to swing him high into the air. He had a dizzying view of the sea of people below him in the dark and then he felt the King settle him on his knee.

_It is so dark and terribly noisy. There are so many angry people below. Their faces were mean and hungry and they were shouting so many things._

He felt a soft touch on his sleeve and he looked into the beautiful compassionate eyes of the Queen. "Be brave, little one," she said, "God and his angels will protect you."

_Be brave. Be brave that was what Martin said when I visited the stable this afternoon. Martin's face had been sad though. I don't like it when Martin is sad, but I remember what he said. 'These men that will be put to death tonight, Master Curly Top, these men threatened the safety of the Crown and they must be punished.' Well I know what it is like to be punished; I get punished when I do poorly at my lessons or when I hide from Nurse or when I broke that…_

He felt his father shift beneath him, and he followed the King's gaze. A loud roar like the sound of a giant beast went up and the child wanted to clap his small hands over his ears. He did not. He could see the large and dirty men in chains being led out a little door. He saw an old woman, wrapped in a shawl, step out of the crowd to speak to one of the guards who nodded at her words. Then she stepped up to each of the bad men in turn. She spoke to each of them and held up a silver cross for them to kiss. The child twisted his gaze around just in time to see the Queen bring the cross at the end of her rosary to her lips. When she saw the child watching her, she smiled gently and reached out to touch him again.

When the bad men were all standing on the top of the platform, there was a man with a long grey beard who stood and read out a long speech; the child didn't understand it all, but he knew the greybeard was talking about the bad men. The crowd shuffled and stilled, the tops of their heads undulating like the surface of the water and the voice of the mob rose and fell in response to the speech. Then the King stood, the child could feel his father's sudden tenseness, and he looked up from where the King had set him at his right side.

His father remained watching the men, but he said to the boy, "This is the King's Justice, Henry…the cost of rule. Watch now and learn."

The sword-callused hand of the King moved to the tender neck, cupping his fingers beneath the golden curls and holding the child in place. "Watch and learn, child," he said.

From behind her, Adrienna heard the axe whistle as it sliced the air on its upward arc and then the solid wet thunk as the blade found its purchase in the block, cleaving flesh and bone alike. The warm, nourishing scent of blood rose, filling the night air; she curled her hands into fists in the folds of her skirt.

The crowd around her roared out a climax of dark passion similar to that of a lover. Her eyes darkened at the flood of emotion and the overwhelming scents that rode on the breeze. But those black eyes were focused only on the tiny cherubic figure that stood rigidly, woodenly at his father, the King's, side. She saw the tears start in the huge blue eyes, and the tiny hand pressed to the soft lips that had formed a perfect "O" of surprise.

She could see the King, holding the boy in place, as she heard behind her the sound of the second man being forced to his knees, the sickly hushed silence of the crowd's expectation, and then the whistle of the axe. She watched the child stiffen and then gasp as the axe fell, the tears flowing freely down the smooth young cheeks. Yet he made no sound, and he watched as he was commanded.

The torches bent and twisted in the buffeting breeze, casting moving shadows against the buildings and across the faces, the murderous faces of the crowd. They were roaring out their glee and their bloodlust as the head rolled and human blood painted the floor of the platform.

By the time the axe had fallen for the third time the child's narrow chest was heaving, his face ashen and his tiny fist was blocking the horrified cry that Adrienna knew was behind it. At last the King loosened his punishing grip on the child's neck and turned the Princeling gently towards his thigh. The King stood at ease and now his large hand rubbed circles on the child's back as he stood with his face pressed against his father's leg, his slim frame wracked by silent sobs.

Adrienna looked towards the Queen whose face was like a thundercloud, dark with a burden of anger and sorrow. Then she looked once more to the King whose face was both sad and proud as he gazed down at his bastard.

A drunken merchant in rumpled and rich clothing, with a blousy whore on his arm, jostled past the vampire. She followed his progress with an inscrutable ebony gaze as she heard him say, "Let's find a dark and private place my dear, beheadings always make me hungry for the warm flesh of a woman." He grasped the whore's breast, eliciting a throaty giggle as she led him away to the edge of the crowd.

The vampire hunted, following at a discreet distance. She would feed tonight, deeply, for the bloodlust was on her, and the haunting tears of the child's wide blue eyes, drove her to fury.

She followed and she thought, _yes, let's find a dark and private place…_


	43. Chapter 43

"I remember you," Henry said hollowly, his eyes refocusing as he returned to the present. "I remember that night." He shook his head, his face pale under the caress of the moon, and Adrienna saw the ghost of the fair-haired boy Prince flit across his features.

"I was…I had nightmares for months afterwards, I couldn't sleep anywhere but my Nurse's lap for weeks."

Adrienna shook her head sadly. "Times were very much different then, in many ways and yet in some ways not so different after all." She glanced around the serene and silent garden. "Our ancient enemies still pursue us; they would hunt us to extinction if they could."

Henry nodded, "The only defense of our kind is secrecy, Adrienna, as we are solitary creatures and once found are easy prey for a determined enemy." He looked out across the moonlit landscape as they sat quietly in reflection for a few moments.

At length Adrienna rose, and brushing the front of her apron, she looked to the moon sailing above the dark trees at the garden's margin. She could see that though he controlled himself well, the territorial imperative was once again stirring in the younger predator.

"We should walk back. I am sure you are wondering how your Chosen is faring. We have a little time yet, do we not?" she asked, looking him in the face.

Henry shifted, purposefully relaxing his shoulders and shaking out the tension from his arms. "Yes we have a little longer," he agreed with a crooked smile. "But I think it would be best if we started back. While we walk, I'll tell you of my business on the Island, if you are interested?"

They began to stroll side by side out of the night garden and as they walked Adrienna inclined her head towards him as Henry began.

"When I first came to Vancouver I made the acquaintance of a young girl, a talented artist; Gillian was her name…"

Coreen sat on the sofa, with her laptop balanced on her knees; she was engrossed in the current search she was undertaking. Faced with Kevin's reticence to disclose anything about the Community, she had eventually given up grilling him, resolving instead to press Henry for details later. Now she was lost somewhere in the ethers, her fingers moving over the keys with an unconscious grace.

_Doesn't she ever get tired?_ Vicki thought to herself, half resenting the girl's apparent calm and resilience. _I just don't do waiting…_

She paced up and down in front of the huge picture windows, with the dangerous energy of a caged beast. The measured repetitive pace of her tread was a counterpoint to the rapid tapping of Coreen's fingers on the keys. As Vicki looked out the windows she found the night to be impenetrable, dark. There was a blurry view of a few feet of clipped grass in front of the teahouse, bled to grey in the half-light and fading quickly into the dark nothingness of the night.

She was worried, in spite of what Henry said and with each passing moment, she found it harder and harder to keep her word.

_God, when I saw her bite Henry. I…I don't know how I stopped myself, and then when he went to his knees in front of her, I was sure that…Fuck where the hell are they!_

"Where the hell are they?" she finally ground out, pinning Kevin with a gimlet eye. "If anything happens to him, anything, you will wish that…"

Coreen had looked up from her screen at Vicki's outburst but she saw that Kevin seemed unperturbed.

"These things take time Ms. Nelson," Kevin said equitably, as though she hadn't just threatened his life.

"Anything could be happening out there," Vicki responded heatedly, swinging her arm out to indicate the darkness beyond the glass. "It's been more than three hours. It's nearly four; the dawn is less than two hours away."

"Calm yourself, please Ms. Nelson," Kevin said, crossing to her. He spread his hands wide at his sides saying gently. "You are Henry's Chosen; search your heart, would you not know if there was some harm that had befallen him?"

Vicki paused for a moment and examined what she was actually feeling. _I want to be with Henry. I want him here, now. I want to see for myself that Adrianna has not harmed him; I want to see it with my own eyes. But am I really afraid that he is hurt or in danger? No, no, I have to admit, no I'm not._

"What the hell is this Chosen business, Kevin?" she asked.

Kevin's brows rose, "Has Henry not explained this to you?"

Vicki shook her head, "No, but he has…shown me a number of things since we reconnected last night."

"It is not mine to explain," Kevin finally said. "I'm sure that Henry has his reasons…"

Vicki turned away, frustrated by her lack of knowledge and information, but she was frightened by the seriousness of Kevin's demeanor. She looked back out the window, staring into the dark again. _Come on Henry, come on…_

As they neared the teahouse, Adrienna listened to Henry's tale of his arrival in Vancouver and of his subsequent meeting with Gillian and then of her loss to the criminal world of prostitution and drugs. Finally he conveyed his information in regards to Joseph Fletcher and Jared and the murder of Gillian here on the Island.

_In MY territory_, she thought; the idea did not sit well with her. She despised this kind of human, who preyed upon the young and weak of their own kind. That she was a predator herself troubled her not at all. She had long ago come to terms with her own requirements.

_I must be honest with myself, the idea that this intruder…_she caught herself glancing swiftly at Henry as he paced beside her. _Ahh Adrienna,_ she chastised herself. _If the youngster can control his instincts even as the bond fades, then shame on you that you cannot do the same._

_The idea that…Henry…hunts this criminal in my territory bothers me, even though for years I have kept clear of the criminal element in Victoria. I will have to think more on this once the intrud…once Henry has gone into the safe zone._

When he shared the information in regards to the small group of Selchies on the Island she was not surprised. She already knew of them. A great deal of information made its way to her eventually, but she was fairly certain they knew nothing of her existence. She had been and still was extremely cautious.

The younger vampire at her side drew to a halt at the edge of the trees; he hung back in the shadows, his posture stiff and conflicted. He had forced her to halt and she watched him as he raised his chin testing the night air. She did the same, separating easily the intertwined scents carried on the breeze and identifying specifically the one she knew he was seeking.

His head was turned to the windows of the teahouse where a trim silhouette could be seen standing gazing out into the night. She could scent the onset of his hunger, his heightened state of arousal and it prickled against her slumbering instincts, rousing them.

She steeled herself, for she knew that their time of truce was running out, yet it had been so long, so long since she had spoken at ease with one of her own kind, and she wanted to share this last thing. She touched his arm and he turned with a snarl, his fangs running out. She held herself with an iron will, spreading her hands out to her sides and waiting. After a moment, he swallowed, looked down and said, "Your pardon, Madam."

"We are pushing our limits here Henry, but seeing your Chosen," she paused at his low growl and then pushed doggedly ahead, "I wanted to try and share this with you, before we run out of time."

Henry yearned towards the building. He could see his Chosen; she waited for him. She was worried, fearful and he wanted to go to her and get her far away from the threat that this ancient one represented. Yet he knew, he knew that the other, that Adrienna, could tell him, could share with him information.

He had taken a Chosen, had done so unwittingly, while still in Toronto, then he had been parted from his Chosen and had suffered months of unnamable grief and torment. He knew why now, but he was in new and uncharted territory here, his understanding of his relationship to his Chosen untried. He needed, they needed the other's experience.

So he reined in his anxiety and his growing irritation and crossing his arms over his chest as though to hold himself in place, forced the words out. "Anything that you can tell me, anything that will help me to understand…this," he nodded towards the silhouette in the window.

Adrienna took a deep breath. It tried her controls but she began to speak quickly and quietly.

"When we are safely apart, distant, I will contact you and answer any questions that I may. You can communicate with me through Augustus and the Community, if that is easier for you." At Henry's brusque nod, she continued…

"As I said, I have taken in all my long life two Chosen. Ellen, the first has been dead for almost a century now," the vampire's eyes grew tender with remembered grief. "I loved her dearly and we had thirty-eight precious years together. I watched her, I watched her age and fade." The vampire's voice strengthened with her message. "Understand that it meant nothing, she failed daily but she was my Chosen and I loved her. In the end, she died at the age of eighty-seven, slipping away from me even as I held her in my arms."

Henry's ebony eyes blinked slowly, but he made no sound.

"I thought then, I thought that I would wait for the sun, the pain was so great, I thought…I thought…" Adrienna glanced down, "But Ellen always was too smart for me, and she made me promise, promise that I would continue. She said that she could not rest if she knew that our love had cost…"

Adrienna paused for a long moment, painfully aware of the youngling who stood stiffly across from her, vibrating with the tension of the blood. "She is buried in the Ross Bay Cemetery; I visit her grave often, even now." Henry's hands loosed their desperate hold on his arms and he swiftly crossed himself.

"The second Chosen I took was a young boy; I will not share his name with you. I had sworn that I would never take another after I lost Ellen. I swore my heart could not bear it. Yet not quite twenty years after Ellen's death, I adopted a young orphaned boy whose parents had been in my service. The bond, the bond I formed to him was as strong as ever I felt to any of my own children, when I was alive. Before I knew it, I had chosen him. He grew into a fine young man," she said, shaking her head.

"But he is not still with you," Henry said bluntly, his struggle to remain calm robbing him of his usual sensitivity and finesse.

Adrienna sighed, her fangs dropping into view as she smiled sadly. "No, when he reached the age of twenty-nine, he asked me to turn him, and as ever, I could refuse him nothing."

"You turned him? You turned your own Chosen?" Henry asked, his voice low and gravelly.

Adrienna nodded, "Yes, as he wished, I gave my Chosen the blood, and he became my Childe. A year is such a short time."

The Prince's head nodded mutely in agreement.

"He is settled in his own territory now, we still correspond, letters and e-mails. The telephone is a little too difficult for him, but then he is still very, very young. I want you to know Henry, that you can ask me what you wish; I will try to answer if I can."

Adrienna stepped back further into the shadows under the trees, moving away from the needling, thrumming tension of the younger vampire.

"Now go…go to your Chosen, and keep to the confines of the safe zone Your Grace."

With a growl and a stilted nod, Henry was gone in a blur.

The door of the Teahouse slammed open, causing the humans to startle. There was the clean moist breeze of the forest air as Henry blurred past. Before she could so much as blink, Vicki felt the sensation that she had been craving since Henry had walked off with Adrienna. Henry's arms came around her and she felt him bury his face in her hair, inhaling her scent. Then he kissed the tender thin skin below her ear.

He raised his face to gaze midnight-eyed at Kevin. "We have to go, now," he said past his fangs. He gathered Vicki to him and was grateful that for once she did not fight his embrace.

"We need to go now, Kevin. The time is up."


End file.
